Finish the Story
by BobSince1934
Summary: Tegan has feelings for Sara and she has since childhood. But those feelings aren't as strongly reciprocated by the younger twin. How long will these thoughts haunt Tegan? Can they even disappear at all?
1. Chapter 1

Partners in crime, that's what everyone called us. Everything we did, we did together. Outsiders and strangers never saw us separated. When facing the world we were never without one another. We came to be known, not as individuals, but as a pair. I was never Tegan, and she was never Sara. We were both Tegan and Sara. It was rare that even our family saw us apart, so the nickname we'd adopted to passed their lips too.

When I walked into a room without Sara, no one noticed the massive emptiness beside me. Inside me. If they did notice, I think they assumed that we'd finally fused into one. We had combined into the single person we should have been born as. Alone, we were addressed in plurals. If I entered the play room and Sara's presence was no where to be seen, it was never, "Tegan, can you pick up your toys?" It was always, "Can you two pick up your toys?" I would do the task without telling Sara or recruiting her to help me. I thought if she didn't have to do any work, then she would be happier.

I was often doing things to please her. She was much more than my sister or my twin. She was my best friend and the only person who really ever mattered to me. I considered her to be part of me. She was who I was. Or maybe, more accurately, I was who she was. A large portion of my being seemed to be concentrated on her and how she felt. I considered ourselves one person. Maybe it was just because of people thinking that of us for years. Maybe I was simply, unconsciously trying to live up to their expectations. But I knew inside that there was more behind it than that. Sometimes I forgot my own name. I didn't know if I was Tegan or Sara, and then I'd get angry that we had two names at all. If no one was going to call us by our separate names, what was the point in them?

Looking back, I realize that I thought of Sara way more than I should have. It was the beginning of feelings I would carry with me into my adult life. Only then I wasn't afraid to speak what was on my mind.

And my thoughts weren't normal little girl thoughts. They were dark. I was obsessed with us. Obsessed with her. I told her, too. She knew how much she meant to me, and she knew all of my dark secrets. Knew that I would die for her. Knew that I would kill for her. Knew that more than anything I wanted to be her, and her to be me, for us to be us as we should be: one.

We had a tent set up in the back yard. It was a heavy duty tent, camouflaged, valuable monetarily and nearly the size of a twin bed. It's worth was represented more in memories than it was in money, though. Our Dad took us camping a lot. It was something he loved, and he had plenty of equipment. After our parents got divorced, he left this tent with our mother. It was the one they'd used the first time they went camping together, back when they were young and in love. He gave it to her for sentimental sakes, and she kept it. But Sonia was never much of an outdoorsy type. When she went, she went for Stephen because he loved it. It seemed natural that she give the gift to the products of their love instead of leaving it to waste, unused in the attic.

It was set up underneath the sycamore where it stayed year-round. The tree possessed enough years that it had wisdom. Not human wisdom or knowledge, but it knew preservation, protecting the tent from the elementals with its canopy of dark branches and fluorescent green leaves as well as storing memories, etching them into its bark. It seemed to hold memories just as powerfully as an Indian dream catcher. It was timeless, and one look at it could bring back decades of previous lives and thoughts of the ones who'd coexisted with it.

But Sara and I only saw the tree as moving, asymmetrical shadows through the tent's thin roof when the sun was bright enough to shine through the thick blockade of the tree's foliage. But that only happened on the hottest days of summer. We stayed in that tent year round. It was our escape place. The only place we could go that we didn't have to share with the outside world. We could talk in private as much as we wanted, and sometimes we didn't even need to talk. We knew what the other was thinking. Closeness will do that to you, tie you to a person emotionally.

While we were perfectly happy to spend all of our time together, our psychologist mother thought our closeness discomforting. She told us to play with other kids, like the others in the neighborhood. She didn't try to force us apart, but rather to make mutual friends.

We didn't much care for others, though. When she set up a play date for us, we always found ways to leave early, sneak into the backyard, and stake out in our camouflage hideout. It wasn't that we didn't like the other kids, we just didn't understand them. They were too different. After spending nearly every second of your life with someone who was exactly like you in every way, it became difficult to comprehend the concept of different and the uniqueness of individuality.

Once when we were seven, new neighbors moved in across the street. They had a daughter a year older than us and a son our age. Our mom thought we would adapt better to making friends if they we could make friends with other siblings. She thought we could relate better to them, but after meeting them, the fact that they were related made it worse. They angered and scared me in irrational ways. The two fought constantly. And over insignificant things like toys. They screamed at each other and threw tantrums. They didn't even act like they loved each other. I didn't understand how they couldn't love their sibling, feel the same way about each other as Sara and I felt. I watched them interact and was more scared than I'd ever been watching a horror movie on TV with Mom. I gripped Sara's hand in my own and squeezed tighter as every minute ticked past, holding on for dear life.

I couldn't stop thinking about whether Sara and I were capable of fighting like them. Could I really hate her? What if I turned on her? What if she turned on me? What if one day we didn't love each other anymore?

Their posh living room turned fuzzy. My head started spinning. My breathing became deeper. It felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I was on the verge of sobbing hysterically.

Sara could tell there was something wrong with me. She knew I was having a panic attack and that she need to get me out of there as fast as possible. She lied to the children's mom, telling her that our mom had instructed us to be back at 3:00 when she'd actually said to be back by dinner time. Her hand squeezed mine until her knuckles turned white, and she led me outside. I had never been so happy for fresh air. Finally, I was no longer suffocating, drowning in a sea of doubt.

She didn't make me walk. She didn't make me move. She didn't make me talk. She didn't make me do anything, and for that I loved her more than I ever had. She wrapped her tiny arm around my tiny shoulders, and she held me while I sat on the curb and cried my eyes out. I was overwhelmed with emotion, and only she could understand why.

I'm not sure how long we sat there, but I'm sure it wasn't as long as I thought it was. If we had stayed out there long enough, then our mom would have happened to glance out of a window and seen us. But she didn't see us. I calmed down and we escaped to our tent like innocent convicts.

I think Sara had spent too much time listening to our mother because after I'd recovered from my trauma, she wanted to talk about it. Mom told us that telling someone about our problems would make them easier to deal with. Sara believed this, but I didn't want to talk about it so soon afterwards. I was afraid the what-ifs would come back, and I would start hyperventilating again. Sara sensed my hesitation, so she talked for both of us. Because her thoughts were mine, and my thoughts were hers.

"We're not like them, Tee. We love each other. I love you." Sara held me in her frail arms again. I buried my face into her chest and listened to her soothing voice. She was wearing her Calgary Flames hockey t-shirt. I was wearing mine. "They're too different from each other. Do you know what's different about us?"

My head shot up, and my eyes were quick to water, as it had only been a few minute since I had last cried and my tear ducts were still eager to leak. I couldn't think of a difference between us. I was her, and she was me. I couldn't bear to be different from her. The thought that she had come up with something unique between us was mortifying. We weren't like the neighbor kids. We just couldn't be.

She wiped the tears from the corner of my eyes with her thumb and smiled. "Nothing. That's what's different between us."

I smiled too, relived, and gave her the biggest hug I could muster. I loved her more than anything, and I wanted everything to stay the way it was for the rest of our lives.


	2. Chapter 2

It was school that forced us into socialization. During preschool, kindergarten, and into grade school we were fine isolating ourselves. Most of the other kids would just ignore us. At first our more amiable classmates made attempts to talk to us, but they soon got the hint that we didn't want to join their games on the playground, work in their group during class, or even come to their birthday parties outside of school.

For the lower grade levels, the desks were grouped together in seats of two. It was a way to introduce teamwork and dependency and develop social skills. We were allowed to interact, but we could also be kept under control. Put too many kids in a pod together and we would have easily overwhelmed the teachers, band together and become more disobedient, but two of us could be handled together at the same time. For the sake of simplicity, these arrangements were always done alphabetically by surname, something else Sara and I shared. So we were always put together.

Sara and I were already masters of teamwork. While the other kids, most of them spoiled by their parents, learned that not everything was about them, Sara and I already knew that other people could matter. We took care of each other. Everything I did was based on us, and everything she did was based on us. When it came to working together, we always got good marks.

But as we got older, teachers started to notice that we were a little too well adapted to each other. We got decent grades and never got in trouble, but the negative comments on our progress reports always had to do with our underdeveloped socialization skills. We didn't spend time with the other kids, and when forced to communicate with them, we didn't do so well.

It was in fourth grade that our teacher issued a parent-teacher conference with our mother. She said the same things our reports had been saying for years, but she said it to Sonia's face.

Mrs. Jones was an older woman in her sixties at least. She'd been teaching for four decades, and she thought she had a special insight into the nature of children. She said that she had taught twins before that had displayed similar traits as us. She stressed that, if not separated, then we would never learn the social skills most children already had, and that the longer we were kept together, the more regressive we would become. Upon learning that our mother was a psychologist, she scolded her for not separating us sooner, knowing that there were negative effects to not doing so, especially when we already displayed less than adequate behavior in social situations.

Someone told our mom that she was raising her children wrong. She wouldn't have it. She wouldn't be a laughing stock or the hypocrite this woman made her out to be.

I remember sitting in that room on the same yellow plastic chairs that we sat in everyday, listening to our mother who was sitting on the same type of chair, as if she were being brought down to our level, talked to the cruel woman behind the mahogany desk. Mrs. Jones was the one in charge, but I had never thought ill of her power until that day. She was always nice to us, and here she was trying to convince our mother to take me away from the most important person in my life. She betrayed me, and from that day forward I resented her.

I never saw their faces as they talked. From the very beginning I knew what the meting was about. I kept my head down and stared at the floor. I never blinked. I was too scared to. If my sight went, then my hearing might too, and I needed to hear exactly what they were saying. I memorized every crack and dirt speck on the three by three tile region below me.

Sara's hand started out in mine. She was as scared as I was. But my palms grew clammy and sweaty. Her fingers melted off of mine, and she had to settle for placing her hand in my lap. As she slipped away, I did, too. I got nauseous, a side effect from the anxiety. I felt the way I did that day we went to the neighbor's house to meet their terrible children, helpless, overwhelmed.

After fifteen minutes of being in that room, listening to the two adults, I walked out. I didn't care if I missed anything important. I couldn't be in there. I couldn't listen to Mrs. Jones's sick plans.

Sara was right behind me. She placed her hand against the small of my back, and we stood in the hallway together. I didn't cry this time, but I almost did.

Sara played her role as caretaker.

"We won't be separated, Tee. Mom won't do that. We'll just tell her we want to stick together, and she'll let us."

She smiled, and I believed her words. I figured I had overreacted. I wiped my tears and tried to smile back.

But no matter how genuine Sara's tone was, we were still to be separated.

By the beginning of the next week, I was still in the same class. Sara wasn't. She was moved down the hall to a different fourth grad class room. I'd walked her there. I'd hugged her and watched her leave me before I went to my class that morning.

I stared at the empty seat next to me, Sara's old seat, and wondered who she was sitting next to now. Was it a girl? Was she nice? Did she talk a lot? Sara wasn't the biggest talker, she would hate that. Was it a boy? Was he smelly? Was he a pervert? I tried thinking of what kind of person Sara was now paired with, but my anxiety-ridden brain couldn't picture positive strangers. So I tried to remember some of the other kids I'd seen on the playground, but I couldn't. I didn't know any of the other kids. I couldn't even see their faces when I tried to see them in my mind's eye. We really were antisocial.

I worried about her constantly. Was she safe? Did the other kids pick on her? Did she like her new teacher? Was she as worried as I was?

On that first day of separation, I didn't pay a bit of attention to anything Mrs. Jones had to say. She excused my insubordination because she knew the situation was tough on me. She did so for the entire week, but even after that I didn't pay attention. My grades began slipping when I was once a good student. It was to the point where if I kept doing what I was doing - which was nothing - I might have had to be held back. My mom forced me into staying after school to be tutored.

The fifth graders were our instructors. There weren't very many of us that needed help, but that was good because there weren't many fifth graders willing to give up their afternoon helping their younger peers.

On the very first day of tutoring, I decided I hated it. It just meant that I would be forced to spend an extra hour every day away from Sara. But it turned out that I wasn't going to be alone after all. Sara came with me even though she didn't need to. She was smart and didn't let the separation traumatize her the way it had me. She always was stronger than me. But she came to the tutoring sessions for me. She did extra work for me. And if that didn't say love, then I didn't know what did.

I looked forward to the tutoring sessions because they meant that I would be with Sara during school hours, and no one could say anything about tit. Once again we would be the only thing that mattered to each other. I thought she would be all mine again. And she was for the most part, but strangers came up to her. They would smile at her, say hi to her. It was like the first day of school all over again. Except this time she smiled and waved back. I had no idea who these people were, and she knew them. She was . . . friends . . . With them.

It hurt me for some reason. She was happy, but I felt worse than I had ina long time. The fact that she knew people I didn't was upsetting enough, but to think that she was actually friends with them. We had never had friends before. Now she was making them without my approval. I felt betrayed in a weird sense. It felt like she'd replaced me even though I was the one she sat next to during tutoring. I was the one she held hands with under the table. I was the one with her face and her thoughts. I was her twin.

I tried to remind myself of these things, of how I could never be replaced. Most of the time it worked.

But then we got into middle school, and the fact that I wasn't the only person in her world became harder to ignore. Our mother had let up on the keeping us separated plan, but junior high's system did a fine job of that on its own. There was no way for us to be together constantly, not when there were so many different classes. And so many different people.

When I wasn't around Sara, various other people were. One couldn't be alone in junior high. There was no way. You couldn't hide in your own little corner because all the corners were already filled. Groups and cliques dotted the hallways. They weren't connected, but they all played a part in a grander design, unseen to the untrained eye.

I tried my best, though, to be as alone as I could. It was easier since I didn't know a single person from elementary. I didn't think I would even be able to pick my former classmates out of the giant mob of fresh face.

But Sara was different. She already had friends. And those friends had friends. She had connections.

I roamed the halls for her at the and of the school day only to find her talking to a group of girls. Strangers, to me anyway. They were older girls, probably eight graders. This didn't bother me, but they didn't seem like the kind of girls Sara would be talking to. Their faces were caked in make up, and their outfits were revealing and promiscuous. I gazed down at my faded red sweatpants as Sara left the group and walked towards me.

She saw the funny way I looked at the walking Barbie clones and shrugged. "I'm going to get us into the popular crowd."

When did we care about being popular? When did we care what other people thought of us?

It was then that I starting realizing that the outside world had a bigger impact on Sara than it did for me. I was content with her, but she needed more. It was the first time that I noticed that I was more invested in her than she was in me. At least during school hours anyway.

But at night, all we had was each other again. The weather was between seasons. It wasn't hot enough to be summer, but it wasn't cold enough to be Autumn. It made for perfect, cloudless nights were we could sit outside wearing only a jacket or a thin sweater and gaze at the stars. Sara and I spent as much time as we could in our tent. There, we talked just like we always had. There was no one else but me and her, and o one could take that away from us. It didn't matter who she had talked to during the day. I had her at the end of the day, and I loved her just as much as I ever had. I didn't care if my love was possibly a bit stronger than hers. I was her twin, and nothing could change that.

Caught up in the moment, I kissed her. My lips stayed puckered against hers for a moment. She didn't kiss me back, but she didn't pull away. She didn't say anything afterwards. She didn't need to. She knew what I felt. She knew that I loved her.

Junior high stayed like this for three years. But high school was a completely different animal.


	3. Chapter 3

Sara was smart, and eventually she was able to realize that the popular girls she so desperately wanted to be friends with were nothing but shallow, two-faced bitches. They never liked her. They made fun of her behind her back, made her do their dirty work, led her on, lied to her, and, on several occasions, spread nasty rumors about her. I tried telling her about what they were doing once, but she ignored me, said I was jealous. So I didn't tell her again. I sat back, helpless, and watched. Part of me wanted to help, tell those bitches off or find some sort of evidence to incriminate them, but I thought Sara would get mad at me again.

And also, there was this tiny selfish voice in the back of my head that told me that I would like what would happen if I stayed out of it. The more Sara got emotionally invested and attached to these girls, the harder she would fall when she looked behind their make-up masks and realized that they were nothing but the white trash most people on this side of town were. The more she got hurt, the less willing she would be to trust again. She would make her way back to me, the only person she could fully believe in, with her tail between her legs like a wounded puppy. I would take care of her, and she would realize how wrong she was to leave me in the first place. I liked this idea just as much as I liked fantasizing of being her chivalrous knight, informing her of her wrong decision before she got seriously hurt, saving her and whisking her away from evil.

But neither of those things happened. We went to a large school, and at a large crime scene, there are a large amount of witnesses. I wasn't the only one to view Sara's getting tossed around like a rag doll. And I wasn't the only sympathetic person in the sea of bad souls. Sara was approached by a small group of people who had told her the same things that I had, that the 'Plastics' weren't the kind of people she wanted to associate with. She was hesitant to listen to them at first. Why would she dissociate herself from the popular crowd, the people who had everything? Why give up a chance at the good life everyone desired to be just another outcast like these people? But eventually she started accepting their offers to sit at their lunch table and to sit next to them in class. I suppose she finally got tired of the constant expectations, inability to be herself, and emotional abuse.

I held a personal grudge against these kids, even if they did save Sara from further humiliation. Why would Sara listen to them, complete strangers, when she hadn't believed me, her twin sister, when we both had said the same things? What had they done to deserve her acceptance?

Unaware of my secret dark thoughts and just because I was Sara's sister, they were nice to me too. When Sara joined them, they asked me to sit with them too, their kind, smiling faces full of genuine politeness. Because they were so nice, I almost felt bad for resenting them. But then as we'd sit together, I'd watch Sara listen intently to their conversations instead of paying attention to me.

I sat next to her, of course, so I reached for her hand under the table like I'd done in elementary. I found it and intertwined our fingers, hoping it would bring her back to me, remind me her of my presence. She tossed her head my way, smiled, and gave my hand a squeeze. But she let go of it instead of holding on to it like she used to do. I brought my hand back up to the top of the table and lost my appetite.

But I would have given anything to have those guys around in high school. Even though I disliked them, there was no denying that they were nice in a naïve and innocent way most people had during junior high. There weren't people like that in high school.

I already thought that the Plastics and Jocks ruled the school, but that was taken to an unimaginably extreme level when we got to Crescent heights. The cheerleaders were prettier, and the Jocks were bigger, more muscular. Hormones were no doubt part of the change in intensity, but power seemed to be the biggest reason for the hierarchy. No one had made these kids step down from their authorities positions in junior high, not knowing what monsters they would become, and they carried on being at the top. With the start of puberty, insecurities gnawed at them, and their newly produced testosterone told them to protect their territory. Rumors became threats, and threats became action. Unless you were one of them, you wouldn't be spared. There were no kind, naïve, innocent souls here. No one could afford to be that way.

The outsiders who defied the rules of the popular toughened up in high school. They were no longer 'just shrug it off and walk away' kind of people. In order to stay alive, they became just as hard as the others. They just used their powers for defense instead of offense.

There were three main groups, the Jocks, the Plastics, and the Bangers. If you weren't part of one of them, you were fucked.

The Bangers were the outsiders from before, just matured and more hard-core. A precious victim of bullying, Sara wasn't going to let it happen to her again. She adapted to the world of the Bangers, where she could stay safe without submitting.

While I was definitely on their side, I didn't agree with everything the Bangers did. Or rather I didn't' approve of what they did to Sara.

I was fine with their occasional acts of vandalism and their tendency to mosh so hard that bruises spread over their bodies like rashes, but the one thing I really disliked were the drugs. But I never voiced my disgust. What was I suppose to say, "Our mommy said that drugs were bad for us?" They'd laugh at both of us. I had the right mind to stay away as everyone else laid back and lit up, but Sara was more impressionable, or maybe just more experimental.

I was there the first time she took E. Some mindless guy, already soaring, talked her into it. I watched as he handed her his last little white tablet. She held it in her sweaty palm for a moment, looking at its little smiley-face design. The she looked up at me. I shook my head, telling her that I thought it was a bad idea. But she tilted her head back and tossed it into her open mouth like aspirin anyway.

Maybe it was because she was so small, but the drugs kicked in swiftly and easily for her. She smiled and laughed. A lot. And she didn't make sense when she talked. She looked happy, but she wasn't the Sara I knew or the sister I loved. I didn't like it.

I made it my job to be her protector whenever she was high or intoxicated. I never left her side. I wasn't chancing her wandering off and meeting some guy who would take advantage of her. I was scared that she would still get hurt, though. I was no bodyguard. I was no protector. She was my caretaker, the one who protected me. I was just a teenage girl, barely over five foot, and barely over one hundred pounds. I had no way of stopping anyone but a two year old from attacking us. I couldn't do anything about whatever harmful effects the drugs might have on her body, and I couldn't do anything if a two hundred pound man decided to corner us in an alley.

Although, men didn't seem to be much of a problem. There were always a few boys who would flirt with Sara, but Sara never seemed interested in any of them. The real problem seemed to be girls. They were the ones who threw flirty glances her way, checked her out as she walked away, and who hit on her at parties and raves. And to these mating calls Sara would respond. Mostly she would just flirt back, but even that worried me.

I almost felt no competition with the boys who vied for Sara's affection. How could they possibly take my place as her one and only when they didn't even have gender in common with me? But the girls did share our sex. And even though I didn't think they could ever replace me either, they still got closer than the boys, which was too close for my comfort.

But nothing serious ever happened until sophomore year. Joan was the first girl Sara ever officially dated. She lived in the neighborhood, and we had met her before high school had started, but were only slightly acquainted to her since she was a grade older than us. But when we started going to Crescent Heights, she became Sara's personal tour guide, walked her to school, showed her around, told her how everything worked, gossiped about which teachers were the best to have. In two years they'd became relatively close, and they decided to see if their relationship could go anywhere.

Mom liked her, thought she was a nice neighbor. Little did she know that she was part of Sara's circle of friends, whose behavior our mother wouldn't tolerate if she knew about them. I hated Joan, to say the least.

A certain date will forever be engraved in my mind. Sara had asked Mom if Joan could spend the night at our house. I could have screamed at her, but Mom nodded and smiled.

I knew the whole night was a bad idea from the start. We'd snuck out for a rave sometime around midnight. Sara and Joan weren't conservative when it came to the party favors and were out of it in no time. In her lovey-dovey state Sara wouldn't allow me to follow her around like They kissed, and as Sara danced beside us, Joan leaned towards me and hissed through clenched, yellow teeth, "Fuck off!" She always was angry when she was high.

Seeing as she was older, taller, heavier, and stronger than me, I backed off a bit so as not to annoy her further. But I didn't distance myself so much that I couldn't keep an eye on them at all times. I stayed by them even though I wanted nothing more than to run away, leave them behind, forget about them, and cry. I was miserable.

A slight sense of relief washed over me like air form a fan on a hot summer day as we headed home. We snuck through the backyard because it was too risky to come in through the front door. I clenched the brass door handle in my hands but looked back to see Sara and Joan sitting on the porch swing together.

"Are you two coming?" I asked, ticked. I was exhausted and pissed at both of them. I didn't want to heave to worry about getting caught just because these two were stalling.

Joan had taken off her jacket, and Sara was currently wearing it around her much smaller shoulders.

"We're going to stay out here a bit," Sara said. "Look at the stars. It's a beautiful night."

I wasn't in the mood for star-gazing lovebirds, so I didn't care if they got caught because of staying outside. I snuck back into the house and went into my room. I laid down, allowing my body to rest. If I could've gotten my brain to do the same, then I would've been happy. But I was still worried. I'd left Sara with Joan. Joan was alone with my Sara. I didn't like her, and I didn't trust her. I didn't want Sara out there with her, eyes moving from the stars in the sky to the stars in Joan's eyes. I couldn't handle her falling in love with her. I couldn't handle her falling in love with anyone. How could she love anyone else but me? I was her best friend. I was her twin. I was her soul mate. There wasn't room for anyone else.

The tears fell, they did regularly then. This wasn't how I'd pictured our lives when we were younger. In my fantasies we were both happy. In reality I was miserable, and I couldn't even put a name on what exactly it was that was wrong with me. All I'd ever wanted was for Sara to be happy, and she seemed to be happy with Joan. I should have been glad for her. But I wasn't.

I cried for a long while before realizing that forty-five minutes had passed, and I hadn't heard Sara and Joan come in yet. Sara's room was right next to mine, and there was no way I could have missed them. They were still outside, but I couldn't imagine either of them being future astronomers, transfixed so long by the extraterrestrial bodies of the universe. I was worried. Our neighborhood wasn't the safest, and the darkness brought predators like a watchful older sibling carried with them their younger brother or sister. What if something had happened to them?

Quietly, I snuck back outside. They weren't on the porch anymore. I panicked. It was then that I heard a groan come from somewhere else in the yard. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I imagined Sara lying on the groaned, beat within an inch of her life by some on-the-run escaped convict. I looked out across the yard, and a faint glow like that of a firefly's was present from inside the tent. A similar noise was repeated, and it seemed to be coming from the glowing, make-shift house's direction. The tent seemed like a pretty good place to dispose of a couple of bodies after killing them. A stranger passing by wouldn't be able to see the bloody corpses. If Sara and Joan were in there, then that meant that the light was created by the glow sticks they had worn at the rave. It made the theory even more plausible

With great trepidation I walked towards the camouflaged tent. I was scared out of my wits, but if my sister was barely alive and needed my help, then I would do everything I could to save her. A tear formed in the corner of my eye. This was too much. It was something out of a nightmare. My hand shook violently as I reached for the zipper to the tent's entrance. I decided to do it quick like a band aid to prevent myself from peeking through the cracks. With one harsh tug the thin, flimsy door fell. The sight before me was one far worse than that of bleeding corpses.

Sara was on the floor of the tent, and Joan was on top of her. Completely naked. They both were.

Joan fell out of her rhythm and toppled backwards. I'd scared her as much as she'd scared me. Sara opened her eyes to see me staring at them. Her face mirrored mine, blank, too shocked to feel anything.

Joan gathered her clothes, and started putting them on. Her shirt was crinkled, her pants were unbuttoned, her jacket was slung over her shoulder, and a sock was abandoned by the time she announced, "I think I'm going to go home." Red faced - from anger or embarrassment, I couldn't tell - she stormed out of the tent, making sure to forcefully push me with her shoulder on her way out. I stumbled, but my gaze never left Sara's.

Eventually, her eyes drifted away from mine, and she, too, picked up her discarded clothes. Slowly and silently, she put them back on and straightened them out the best she could, despite the fact that no one would see her in them. She walked closer to me and swallowed. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but then shut it. I cried more heavily than I had in my room. She could only bring herself to say two little words to me. "Move on." Then she left as just as quietly.

I stood there for a long time, flabbergasted, before my emotions took hold of me. I couldn't stand the smell of sex inside of the tent, and I had to leave. More tears streamed down my face, and I whimpered as I kicked the side of the tent. I threw a couple of punches at it, hoping to relieve the anger I felt inside of me, but the tent was unharmed. It was winning just like Joan was, and I couldn't allow it to defeat me. There was an old shovel next to the shed, and I grabbed it's smooth, wooden handle. It felt good in my palms as I swung it, its sharp edges tearing into the tent's flesh. Its camouflaged fabric ripped, and its wail sounded lovely to my ears. I didn't realize that I was acting like the monster I had feared had gotten hold of Sara before. I was the murderer, swinging the weapon and listening to the cries of my slayed victim.

I was ruining two generations of love by destroying this tent. I was cutting the last thread of love my parents had for each other. I was destroying the love that created me. And at the same time I was stomping on all the childhood love I'd felt for Sara. Our parent's love hadn't worked, and I was stupid to think that mine and Sara's would work.

I didn't even know what my love for Sara was. I thought what I felt for her was entirely the love that I should have felt for her. She was my twin, and to dream of anything less than loving her felt more wrong than anything I'd ever known. But I wasn't a kid anymore, and I was starting to realize that maybe love wasn't supposed to be like this. Sara had dreamed of the same future with me that I had dreamed of with her when we were younger, and she no longer acted like she wanted that. She'd moved on, and now she was telling me to do the same. She'd made love to someone else. Why was I so jealous? Why hadn't I moved on yet? Why did I still feel this way? And why did it feel so right to love her, but why did it seem so wrong at the same time?


	4. Chapter 4

I felt pissed, angry, betrayed, and all rightfully so. What Sara had done was ridiculous. Out of character. Sure she'd gotten into some bad things, but I couldn't see her giving herself up that easily. And to her very first girlfriend, no less. She wasn't a whore. She had more respect for herself than that.

Part of me couldn't help but think that she'd done it because of me, because she'd known that I would've found out. The words she said to me replayed in my mind. Move on. She'd said it so softly, so gently, that I had barely heard her. There was a nervousness behind it, from the shock I assumed, but it was clear that she meant it.

But what had she meant exactly? Move on from what? All the childhood fantasies we had had that I still hopelessly lugged around like deadweight? Was she telling me to be realistic, that there was no way for us to be that close? Or did she know what I felt, that there was something more than twin love behind my emotions? I hadn't quite figured it out yet or admitted the possibility, but she was smarter than I and quicker to catch on. Was she trying to stop me from realizing it, or just suffocating the seed of desire before it had a chance to bloom?

It didn't matter what her reasons were, though. Sara could've gone about it differently. There were other ways, less hurtful ways to get her point across. I was still her twin. She knew, had to have known, what her actions would do to me, how much it would hurt me. Why would she do something like that?

I couldn't forgive her. Not for abandoning me. Not for crushing my dreams. Not for hurting me. Not for anything. If she wanted me to move on, I would. If she wanted me out of her life, I'd leave.

I could be just as stubborn and hard-headed as she was. All I needed was the right motivation, and she had provided that. Consumed by anger, I would hold my grudge against her until she begged for forgiveness and meant every plea to leave her lips.

There was no more joining her lunch table, picking the seat next to her in class, going to the same parties as her, or visiting her in her room. And most important of all, there was no more tent. She caught on quickly that I was giving her the cold shoulder, but she didn't seem to mind. It took her weeks to look me in the eye. Whether it was because she was trying to prove her point or because she was ashamed of herself, I didn't know. Even when she regained her composure, when she looked at me, I looked away. Whether it was in the hallways at school or the ones at home., I refused to associate with her.

By leaving her side, it also meant that I was leaving behind all the benefits of being her sister. None of the people that I'd known through her continued talking to me. I wasn't important to them because they weren't important to me. I had never tried getting to know them. Others had been the last thing that about which I had been concerned, and that didn't chance. I was now the number one priority on my list, bumping Sara out of the top stop, but everyone else was still on the bottom.

Being lonely wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be. I wasn't bothered, but perhaps that was because nearly no one knew who I was. I had always been invisible, and I was good at it.

Or, at least, I thought I was until someone approached me.

Two firm taps on my shoulder in History class scared me far more than they should have. At first I thought that maybe a large bug had dropped from the ceiling and landed on me, but when the action was repeated a second time, I knew it was deliberate. Startled, I turned around to face the dark-haired boy behind me, the perpetrator of the act of spatial violation. I looked at him expectantly.

"'Sup?" he asked nonchalantly.

My face scrunched in bafflement. That's what he had to say? That's what he got my attention for? I turned around and rolled my eyes. This was why I didn't talk to people.

He leaned forward so that he wouldn't have to speak as loudly. His words were hot on my neck. "What? Are you too good for me or something?"

I turned to face him again. "I don't even know you."

"Do you know anybody?" He paused to observe my expression, checking to see if I'd taken it offensively. I hadn't decided if I had yet. "I mean, I just never see you talking to anybody. And you never answer questions. You're very quiet. Introverted."

"Well, that's just the way I am." I faced the head of the class again, cautious of the teacher.

"I'm Jeremy by the way."

I didn't respond to him.

"Just because we're in the same class and you already know my name and I know yours, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't introduce yourself correctly, Tegan. It's only polite."

What a smart ass. I still didn't say anything.

Apparently just because the guy had said a couple of sentences to me, he felt like he had the right to smile at me in the hallways or say hi to me when I came to class. It was weird. He wasn't doing it for shits and giggles, gaining the quiet girl's trust just to make fun of her naiveté behind her back. It was genuine, and I realized that I should probably dissemble some of the wall I'd built up and be nice to him back. Say hi back every once in a while. But we never really talked. I wouldn't have even called him an acquaintance then.

That's why I was surprised to feel him take the seat next to me on the bus after school one day.

"Is it okay if I sit here, Teegs?" I nodded, stunned to see him. "Is it okay if I call you Teegs?" I nodded again. No one besides Sara or my parents had ever given me a nickname before.

"You ride this bus?" I rode the same public transportation bus home every day, and I had never seen him on it.

He shrugged. "Sometimes. I'm visiting a friend."

I stared at the back of the navy blue seat in front of me, having nothing else to say. An awkward silence swept over us like tear gas. He fidgeted with the straps and zippers of his back pack as if if he could open it, he would find the right words to say buried deep inside of it. With some slight discomfort, he did managed to stammer out his next two sentence. "You uh - You looked lonely. That's why I sat here."

"But I'm used to being alone, remember?"

"Yeah, but I was surprised to see you without your sister. You guys seem to hang out a lot."

What was I saying? I had never been alone a day in my life because of Sara. Even this stranger could tell how much we were together, or well, used to be before she broke my hear. "We don't really hang out much anymore."

"Yeah, I kind of noticed that too." He looked over at Sara, sitting by herself at the front of the bus. "Why aren't you two sitting together?"

Because I didn't want to talk to her. Because I didn't' want to think about her or anything she had done. I frowned. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Did you two -"

"I cut him off. "I said I don't want to talk about it!"

He backed off. "Sorry." Another minute of silence. "Are you mad at me?"

"No."

"Good, because this is my stop, and I don't want to leave on bad terms. He winked, stood up, and pulled the cable, hanging from the top rails, signaling the driver to stop the bus. "But I am going to get you to tell me what's wrong eventually."

Before I could protest that it was none of his business, he was gone.

A few days later he rode the bus again, and again he sat by me. He didn't ask like he had the first time, but I didn't tell him that he couldn't sit there. I'd grown tolerant of his company, used to it.

He looked at Sara, sitting in the same spot she was the last time, the spot we had always sat at together. It was the closest seat to the bus doors. We were always eager to get home as fast as possible. But now I didn't care that my seat was farther back, that I would have to walk a longer distance to the house. I couldn't be around her. Jeremy was as good a replacement as any.

"Are you two still mad at each other?"

"Who said we were mad at each other?"" I hadn't told him anything except that I didn't want to talk about it. He'd been good about not prying, taking my apprehension seriously. It was kind of him.

"Well, you two used to be connected at the hip, but I haven't seen you talk in forever. There's obviously something going down."

Damn his observational skills. I wasn't aware that anyone paid attention to us. There was no denying something bad had happened, but there was no way that he was getting the full story. "Okay, yeah, we're fighting."

"What'd she do? Borrow your clothes without asking? Steal your best friend? Date the guy you like, or something?"

"Yeah. The last one," I said, picking the most true without it being accurate.

"Can you really blame her though? You're twins, wouldn't you be attracted to the same people?"

I thought he was supposed to be on my side, not Sara's. "She's only dating him because she knows it'll make me mad."

"Ah, so she's just a bitch?"

A bitch? I could have killed him on the spot for saying something lke that about my sister. Sara was perfect, the further thing from a bitch. But then I remembered that I was supposed to be upset with her. SO I bit my tongue and listened.

"Well then all you have to do is prove that her bitchiness isn't effecting you. Don't' give her the cold shoulder because that's still a reaction. Pretend that you're not bothered at all. Do everything the same way you did before. Maybe even say that you're happy for her and him."

"But I am bothered by it, and I'm not happy for them. I can't just act like it didn't happen."

He chewed on the corner of his bottom lip for a moment, peeling a thing white strip of skin from the raw, red mass of tissue, a habit he acquired when he was thinking. "You can pretend that you've moved on, found another guy. Then she might even leave her boyfriend, so you can get him back!"

He was optimistic, proud of himself even, but I shook my head. "She knows that I wouldn't get over him like that. It would never work."

"It could work! You don't know that it wouldn't."

This whole lie was sounding more ridiculous to me by the minute. I hated that I had to use 'he' when the fact was that I'd never talked to one guy my age besides Jeremy. Liking one had never even crossed my mind. But it wasn't like I could tell Jeremy that I was really trying to win back my sister from herself. She was the one who had messed everything up, and I just wanted them to be the way they used to be. No matter how angry I acted towards her, all I wanted was for everything to be okay again.

We passed the street Jeremy had gotten off on the last time, and I looked at him to make sure he realized it.

"Who said I was going to the same place as last time?"

I hadn't considered the thought, but accepted it now. I had derailed the previous conversation and that was enough for me. Five minutes later, Sara and I arrived at out stop. To my surprise, Jeremy followed me off the bus. "What are you doing? I asked him, stalling at the bus stop as Sara walked ahead of us. This was my way of purposefully putting space between the two of us without calling attention to it.

"My stop is just a couple of blocks from here. I figured I could walk you home and then head over there."

Walking me home? Sure, I knew the guy better than I did at first, but still it didn't feel like I knew him enough that he would come to my house. "Why are you doing this?"

He slung his camouflage backpack over his shoulder, and I was reminded for a split second of the tent I had destroyed.

"Because we still haven't figured out what to do about your sister! I want to help."

Sara rounded the corner and ducked out of sight. I felt that she was far enough ahead of us that we could start walking.

"So what do you suggest I do?" I doubt anything he recommended would be helpful because he didn't know the whole situation, but I felt bad that he'd gone out of his way for me. At the least, I would entertain him.

"I still don't see what's wrong with the finding another guy idea. Are you worried about hurting someone's feelings, leading them on when you don't really want a relationship with them? Because I'll let you in on a little secret: most guys don't give a shit about you. They won't be hurt if you break up with them. All they want is a fuck buddy. If you wont' be that for them, then they'll be more than happy to find someone who will. So by all means, go ahead and lead on some douche bag and pull the rug out from under him."

"That's not it. She knows that I don't have eyes for anyone else."

"But it's high school! Emotions fluxuate. Girls like one guy on Monday, another on Tuesday, and a third on Wednesday. She'll believe that you've found someone else."

I sighed. "You're impossible. It won't work. You don't know me or my sister." The words came out crueler than I thought. I still wasn't used to being gentle when it concerned people's feelings. I had no practice. To me, everyone was just like the brother and sister that were our neighbors. I couldn't understand them no matter how hard I tried. But I apologized because I'd gotten out of hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I just have a lot going on right now."

"It's alright," he assured me, more understanding than most kids our age would have probably.

"Anyway, this is my house," I said stopping in front of our home. "We're here." I thought we'd part ways on the sidewalk, but he walked me up to the house too.

I tried the handle, but the door was locked. Sara's doing, I supposed. I knocked. Mom answered. She smiled at me as I stepped in, but her eyes lit up with intrigue as she noticed my guest. I took off my shoes and noticed that Sara was sitting on the couch watching TV. Except her eyes were more focused on Jeremy than the rerun of Full House. My mom's hand shot out. Jeremy shook it, and she introduced herself. "Hi, I'm Sonia, Tegan's mom."

Jeremy smiled politely at her, but kept his main attention on Sara. Their eyes stayed connected. Sara looked grumpy like she always did these days, but there was an evil glint in Jeremy's eye. Something I'd never seen in him before. He smirked to himself, but it was barely noticeable. If I hadn't been looking, then I wouldn't have noticed it. Looking towards my mom he said, "I'm Jeremy." To Sara: "Tegan's boyfriend."

My eyes went wide and my jaw fell open. My mom tried to hide the smile behind her eyes and the one on her thin lips. Sara went pale. I couldn't believe what he'd just done.

"I should probably get going," Jeremy announced. "I have a friend waiting on me." He smiled at my mom. "Nice meeting you." Sara he just glanced at before turning and winking at me.

I could have killed him.

He left and so did Sara. She ran down the hallway where she entered her room and slammed the door. She didn't look so good, paler than she was the previous minute, and I could have sworn I saw a tear on her cheek.

I wanted to smile because the plan had actually worked. I had upset her. What I'd done - made her jealous, angry, confused? - was a mystery, but that didn't matter to me. I had succeeded in hurting her the way she had hurt me.

But then guilt, worse guilt than I'd ever felt before ripped through me like an arrow shot from a bow. I'd hurt the girl I loved. I'd damaged my sister. I'd upset my twin. My life used to be centered around making her happy. How could I have done this? I couldn't belive I'd hurt her just because of a stupid grudge. I wanted to take it all back, take her pain away for her, carry it around with me as if I had been sent to Hell. As long as she was fine again. But I couldn't. I couldn't do anything.


	5. Chapter 5

I didn't want Sara upset and crying in her room all alone. I wanted to apologize. Tell her I was sorry for what I'd done. Tell her how Jeremy wasn't actually my boyfriend, just some smartass kid I knew. I wanted to make it up to her. But there were still parts of me that were too angry, embarrassed, ashamed, and upset to talk to her. I knew I was probably the last person that she wanted to see, and I could have made everything worse by trying to talk to her when I didn't know exactly what to tell her or what she wanted to hear.

I used to like the fact that our rooms were so close together. It made it easier for me to sneak into her room at night. But that afternoon I hated it. I could hear her crying. Every little whimper she made was a stab to my gut. All I could think about was that I was the one who'd made her cry, and the only thing I could do about it was cry right along with her. But I kept my sobs quiet. I didn't want her to hear me. It would probably just make her think of me all over again, and I didn't want her thinking of me if it brought up negative thought. I couldn't do that to her.

Even though I was sick to my stomach, I would have eaten dinner if Sara had. But she didn't because she was the same way I was. There was no desire for food, and she wasn't about to face our mother with red, puffy eyes and a runny nose for something so trivial. Not that I wanted to either, but I would have if it meant I got to see her. I wanted to see her, let her know that I was as miserable as she was. If she knew my guilt, maybe she would understand, not feel as upset.

I felt terrible, but I didn't do anything about it for the longest time. I sat and sulked until the thought of Sara suffering the same way drove me too crazy. I forced myself out of bed, though I wasn't aware I'd done it until I was up, in the hallway, and facing Sara's room. My legs had worked on their own, made me do what I had wanted, but now that I had control back, I couldn't make myself do anything else. I couldn't knock, but I couldn't leave either. I waited there, still, wondering if she could sense that I was there. I kind of hoped she did. But if she did know, then she didn't make it clear. Maybe she was waiting for me to open the door. But I was too busy waiting for her to do it.

I pressed my ear against the door and imagined she was doing the same on the other side. I stood there long enough to let my breathing go quiet, my lungs grow calm, and my eyes dry enough to start stinging, but nothing else happened. Sara never opened the door, and I didn't either. For the second time in that same spot, I snapped back into reality. Anyone could come through this hallway at anytime and see me here, eyes closed and face smashed against the door. I didn't feel like having to explain it.

I peeled myself away from the door like tape. The experience had left temporary marks on both me and the slab of wood. My face was smooth and cool, pressed flat from the pressure, and the door was warm where my face and hands had rested against it. Heat and a couple of footprints in the shaggy carpet were all I left behind as I tiptoed back to my room as quietly as I could lest Sara hear me leaving. If she had been waiting on me, I didn't want her upset that I was gone. If she hadn't been on the other side, I didn't want her to know that I had been there at all. I felt pathetic for not doing anything, but I just didn't have it in me. I'd have to rely on our twin instinct to let Sara know I was sorry, and I'd have to rely on Sara to make the first move. She was our leader. I followed her. I couldn't do her job.

I wasn't sure what time it was, and I wasn't concerned about any of the things I should have been doing. All I knew was that my eyes were heavy with tears and sleep, and it was easier to submit than suffer. I half-heartedly changed into sleepwear, not wanting to sleep in clothes, but not thinking I deserved the comfort either.

I'm not sure when I would have woken if my rousing hadn't been physical. I was exhausted and wanted only to sleep off this whole thing. But as soon as I felt someone touch me, I was alert. I'm not sure if it was because of a natural defense mechanism or because I somehow knew that it was Sara, but immediately after I felt the similarities between my body and the body on top of me, all of my worries disappeared. Sara had come to me. She latched on to me with one arm and with the other she pulled the bedspread out from under me. It would have been easier for her to do it with two hands, but I didn't want her to let go of her hold on my arm, so I was glad she completed the task the awkward way she did. Keeping her hold on me made her seem almost as desperate as I felt, and I liked that. Her legs kicked their way under the blanket. The comforter had bunched up around my body, so I submerged myself beneath the cotton sheets the same way she did. Her legs wrapped around mine loosely. She was wearing shorts, what both of us always wore to bed, so I could feel her goosepimpled flesh on my naked limbs. Her skin was cold, and it made me colder than I'd been all night. I became just as happy for the blanket as she was. She released me from her hold, but moved the same arm so that it was around my waist. She buried her face into my neck, and unlike with her legs around mine, the contact brought warmth. Her face was hot with tears. Although it was too dark to see anything, I imagined she looked like me. And I imagined that I didn't look so good.

I thought back to all the times when we'd been in this same position. Except we were almost always in her room, and I was the one doing the cuddling. It felt nice for the roles to be reversed. I knew that my love for her was stronger than her love for me, but in that moment it didn't feel so one-sided. It felt like she needed me and missed me. After going so long without speaking to her and being angry with her, I couldn't imagine a better way to be brought back to a truce. But it did make me feel a bit guilty. Maybe if I hadn't gotten mad, if I had reacted rationally, then things could have been patched up much sooner. But the darker side of me was getting exactly what it wanted. Sara had come crying back to me, and I hadn't budged. I hated how conflicting my thoughts and emotions were. But one deep inhalation with Sara's hair so close to my face made me forget all of my problems and relaxed every muscle in my body. I lost myself in the scent of her shampoo.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. I'd reacted badly. I'd hurt her. It didn't matter that she'd hurt me first, I still felt like the Big Bad Wolf.

Whether I was willing to fully admit it or not, Sara knew that she was still the main one at fault and was willing to admit it. She'd slept with Joan on purpose and plotted a plan that she knew would hurt me to change things to the way she wanted them. Her intentions - even though I wasn't fully sure what they were - were good, but she still felt guilty. Even if she had told me to move on, I was her twin and she didn't want me in pain. I knew that.

She placed her fingers against my lips, silencing me. "No, I'm sorry."

She pressed herself against me tighter, and the words 'move on' came back into my head. I had a feeling this closeness wasn't helping me do that.

"I'm sorry for what I did. I shouldn't have. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. Please don't be mad."

Then I felt worse for being mad than I had before. I said the only thing I knew to say, and the only thing I truly knew at all. "I love you."

There was a slightly unsettling pause between my response and hers. When she spoke her voice was much quieter than it had been before, but I heard her say it back. "I love you, too." Her words came out in wisps of syllables, and I chose to ignore the trepidation in her voice. She'd said it back. That was what mattered.

I scooted away from her enough that her head was no longer buried in my neck. She let out a soft sigh, and I raised her face to mine. I couldn't see in the dark, but I knew what was in her eyes, and I knew she knew what was in mine. I brought our lips together, gingerly. I put every emotion and thought I had into the kiss. If she didn't already know how I felt, she did after that. It wasn't just a peck like the kind of kissing we normally did. I held my lip against hers for as long as I could. Seconds passed and I felt the slightest amount of pressure applied in return. Like her voice, it was weak and hesitant, but I felt it, and that was what mattered.

We parted, and she rested her forehead against mine. "I'm sorry," she whisphered again and squeezed me tighter. It almost made the night worth it to have her in my arms again while we slept.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: If you've been here before, then you know that I wanted to edit this chapter, and I did finally get around to doing that. If you haven't been here before, now you know that I edited this chapter. But don't worry, the content wasn't really changed too much. Nothing was really affected. **

**Oh, and I still enjoy comments/feedback/reviews. :) **

After what he'd done and caused, I should have kicked Jeremy to the curb. I came back to school angry at him and with every intention of giving him a good piece of my mind. He was the same as every other guy in this school. You don't do things like lying about being someone's boyfriend when the other person already expressed their distaste for the idea. The things people did for shits and giggles had a bigger impact in the life of others than they thought. By saying what he had, Jeremy had messed up Sara and I's relationship all over again.

But in a weird way, he had fixed it. If it weren't for him, I would still be angry at Sara, and she would still be distant. She wouldn't have apologized so soon, and she wouldn't have crawled into my bed that night or let me kiss her and relive the memories of our childhood. In a way, his idea had worked, but I wasn't sure if the fact that things were going to get better made up for the fact that things had gotten worse before that, and he was at fault for the worse. No one was allowed to hurt Sara, even if the pain only lasted for one night.

Part of me resented him for upsetting Sara, but how he'd managed to fix us happened to be the main thing on my mind when I saw him in class. I couldn't completely forget about avenging Sara, but he spoke such tranquil, normal words to me. He greeted me kindly and smiled. Then he asked about the homework assignment. He was so lacking in hostility that I temporarily forgot why I was mad at him. My anger seemed trivial and misplaced. This boy couldn't possibly have done me wrong, I thought. He was nice. . . Almost like a friend. I greeted him, smiled back, told him which chapters we were supposed to read, and forget all about scolding him.

When I was alone again, surrounded by sterile hallways, filthy, checkered floor tiles, uniform blue lockers, and blurs of strangers with my thoughts cleared unpolluted by Jeremy, his politeness, and his amiability, I could remember why I had been upset with him in the first place, but it didn't seem like as big a deal as it had seemed before. I still remembered why I had forgotten my anger, and the reasons still made sense. He hadn't meant to upset us, and I couldn't berate him for such a thing. He was no thief, and I no court judge.

In fact, I grew more and more fond of Jeremy. He was the only person I talked to other than Sara, and he was the only person who had ever bothered trying to talk to me. Sara had a couple friends who had tried to start conversations with me, but when I didn't show any interest, they backed off. When I expressed my distaste for Jeremy, he persisted. I decided that I kind of liked that about him. Maybe he really was different. He was someone I had learned to respect, and not a lot of people could earn any kind of emotion from me.

Sara might have disapproved, but I kept talking to him. It wasn't like I approved of all of her friends, and it almost felt good to do something she didn't like. Part of me - a very large part - wanted nothing more than to please her, still, but if she disapproved of who I spent time with, maybe she would understand how I felt when she was with her friends. I had a sick love of revenge - not that I was happy about it.

Mostly Sara and I were fine, though. After that night our relationship did start to repair. The phrase 'things don't get better until they're worse' rang true in this case. We talked again. And then we started talking like we used to, lovingly, and like we both thought the conversation was important. I could call her my best friend, my sister, my twin, my other half again, and I could speak to her like all of those things. We weren't quite like we were as children. We could probably never be that free again. The solitude and intensity that children feel just isn't something adults or even teenagers can achieve when they have pressure, society, and life placed upon their conscience. But we were back to the way we'd been as pre-teens and in our early teenage years before Joan. Sara had her friends and her circle, and they were her main focus out in the world, but behind closed doors, I was her one and only. At home we were happy with each other, and that's all I really wanted.

The only differences between those years and the few years prior were that Sara didn't have her virginity, we no longer had our tent, and I had Jeremy. The last variable was probably the biggest change. Before, I would be lonely while Sara was with her friends. The solitude left me alone with my thoughts, and I would easily get upset and jealous. But with Jeremy there to distract me, it made it less likely for those things to happen. With him around I was never by myself, so the loneliness never developed or spread like the disease it felt like it was. It made me realize how important Jeremy was because he _was_ important. He became my first and only friend who wasn't a part of me in some way. I liked having him around. And the more I kept him around the more upset Sara got. And the more upset Sara got, the more I benefited.

There was no doubt friction between him and Sara. All of it was on Sara's side of the field, but it was still there and it affected me. But I didn't do anything about it. I was going to step in that first day back to school and take Sara's side, but that didn't go as planned. I felt I had made the right decision, but the only bad thing was that I never explained Jeremy's side to Sara. I didn't tell her the full story of what had happened. She didn't realize that what she'd been told was a misunderstood lie, and I didn't tell her the truth. She still thought that Jeremy was actually my boyfriend.

This confusion was completely accidental. I hadn't originally meant to keep her in the dark, but I hadn't originally planned to explain it to her either, and that added to the problem. I was going to end everything with Jeremy and that was going to be that, but I'd shocked myself so much by reversing my decision at the last second that I'd completely forgotten to take the other route and explain everything to Sara. Had I realized my mistake earlier, I would have told Sara, but when I did realize it, I also realized that not telling her came with benefits, things the darker part of me liked, anyway.

On the bus I started sitting in Sara's - our - seat again. I missed chatting with her on the way home. Those twenty or so minutes spent together on public transportation were a segue, a necessary transition between our two lives.

On the way to school it helped us switch from home mode into social mode. After spending the previous night and the very early morning together, we were still a bit clingy and affectionate. Sometimes I would find my hand on her leg or her hand on my arm where neither of us had intended it to be and where we hadn't noticed it before. They were subconscious actions that we couldn't stop, but it didn't matter because, although we were out in public, there was really no one around to notice it. At 7:00 A.M. the buses were were mostly filled with other students, and most of them tended to get in some last minute shut-eye and sleep the whole ride. There were other people, too, adults with an obvious destinations; women in scrubs, men in suits and ties. But all of them seemed busy, rummaging through their purses or briefcases. The last thing on their minds was to pay any attention to the over-affectionate sisters at the front of the bus. Then there were random people with less obvious intentions, but they were strangers and we would probably never see them again. Calgary was a big city. We didn't care if they noticed.

The situation was vice versa on the way home. We'd spent the day socializing with other people and the bus ride home helped us get close again, preparing us for how we would act at home. We could talk and get back into the grove that was the two of us.

That is, if we didn't have distractions. Normally, we didn't, but there were still those random days that Jeremy rode our bus, and he wasn't too keen on sitting alone. Predictably, he gravitated towards me. No longer able to sit with me since his usually reserved spot was occupied by Sara, he took the seat behind us. He smiled at me knowingly, cocky and proud. He was glad that we were getting along again, and he credited himself for the reunion as if he were some miracle worker. I gave him some credit for it, too, but not to his face. His ego didn't need any more boosting.

He conversed with me like normal, and I felt inclined to talk back. But he didn't pay much attention to Sara. He said a customary hi to her, but not much else. He didn't know Sara, so I understood. I didn't expect him to involve her. I didn't bring her up either. She didn't fit into the discussion about our mutual classes, and she didn't understand our inside jokes. I locked over to her a few times, mostly because I couldn't resist, and she seemed a bit off. There was something displayed on her face. She was upset, frustrated, confused or something, but I couldn't couldn't quite read her. She was a television drowned in static, but I figured it was just because we weren't talking to her. I knew she wouldn't voice her frustrations, she wasn't as clear or obvious to read as an open instruction manual, but I also knew I would make it up to her once we got home and I could readjust the antennae.

Jeremy got off the bus before us, Sara and I went to our safe haven, and I thought nothing of it. It was a normal school day, and I had work to do, so I sat at our dining room table and splayed across it my books and papers. Sara apparently had no homework, that or she had opted to procrastinate it, because she didn't sit studiously beside me like she usually did. Instead she stood peculiarly in the kitchen with me. She asked me if I was thirsty and poured me a class of Pepsi. She asked me if I was hungry and peeled me a banana. I thanked her, but found it odd. She was always nice to me, but it wasn't like she wasn't my mother. I didn't expect her to get things for me. I was the one who got things for her. I thought she would leave me to go watch TV while I completed my assignments, but she didn't. She sat next to me, very closely next to me, bringing her chair towards mine until the thunking of sturdy wooden plates against each other echoed through the room. Her right arm brushed my left, and neither of us flinched from the contact. I couldn't tell if she was watching me because she wanted to or because there was nothing else to do, but she observed my every move, nonetheless. But it wasn't in her nature to sit there and watch for very long. After I finished my banana and drank my Pepsi, Sara threw the peel away and rinsed out the glass for me, but then she grew increasingly restless and impatient. "Are you almost done?" She would ask every couple of minutes. I was never as smart as her and never could do my work as fast as her, so my answer was no. Soon enough she stopped asking questions all together and gave me commands. "Tee, come watch a movie with me."

"Right after I finish this worksheet," I promised

"Tegan, watch a movie with me!"

I wanted to. She knew that. "I have work, Sara." I pouted while I said it.

"You can finish it in class tomorrow. Come on, please? I didn't get to see you on the bus today because of your boyfriend."

That's when it hit me. Boyfriend. That's when I knew why she was being so clingy. She wanted to make up all the time we'd lost on the bus. She was jealous of Jeremy taking up her time with me. That's what her expression had said.

That's when I should have told her about Jeremy's plan to win back a nonexistent boy she had stolen from me and about the lie he'd told in order to help me do it, but something told me not to. Now I knew why she was acting so strangely, and it was a lot easier for me to accept the behavior. I imagined she was acting more like the way I acted towards her most of the time. I kind of liked that she was being the clingy one instead of me. If jealousy was what brought this on, I would fan the flames of envy like an obedient servant fans their master on a hot day. I thanked jealousy - and Jeremy.

That night was great. We stayed up late and watched movies in the living room in the dark. The light from the television flickered against the walls and it reminded me of the blinking stars. I felt a pang of nostalgia for our tent, but that just reminded me of why I destroyed it in the first place, and I didn't want the memory to ruin my night, so I hugged Sara close to me and we watched the artificial stars.

Needles to say I got even closer to Jeremy after that. I had to keep him around. Every time he rode the bus my smile got bigger. I knew how great of a night that meant I was going to have. And each one of those nights got greater. The more my smile grew, the more Sara thought I was falling for him. The closer she thought he and I were, the more she tried to bring me closer to her. It was a corrupted, cyclic spoils system that I alone reaped the benefits of in the end.

But then I got greedy. If spending twenty minutes with Jeremy on the bus got me an entire night of movies and cuddles, I could only imagine what would happen if I spent even more time with him outside of school. So I invited him over. It was justifiable. Friends went to each other's houses. At least, that's what I heard in the hallways and saw on TV. He eagerly accepted my invite, and Mom was on board as well, more than happy to see me spending time with other people, especially someone she thought I was dating. (I'd forgotten to tell her, too, and once I realized that, it didn't matter. If I told her, she would mention it to Sara, and I couldn't bear to have my disguise ruined.) I was pretty proud of my plot.

Him coming over, of course, meant that he would have to ride our bus, which already guaranteed that my night would be good. Sara looked more dejected than usual, and I knew it was because she couldn't tell herself that in twenty minutes she would be free of him and that everything would be better again. I would have felt bad if I didn't know just how much better things were going to get. I was glad Sara suffered in silence. She never confronted me nor made a big deal out of it, and that allowed us both to enjoy the good times that came afterwards more.

Even though she disliked Jeremy, Sara hardly ever left our sides. Whether it was because she was afraid he would try something that she could prevent by being around us, or if Mom was afraid he would try something so she ordered Sara to stay with us so that he wouldn't, I didn't know. But Mom immediately liked Jeremy. She thought he was kind and polite, and he was because he wanted to make a good impression. But I doubted that she would want us to be alone together. I understood why, but I didn't understand why she hadn't done the same with Sara and Joan. If she had, none of this would have started. For a few brief seconds I thought of this and almost let resentment get the best of me, but then I remember that Mom didn't know Sara was gay and hadn't realized her and Joan were a couple. I couldn't blame her for something she couldn't have known. I hadn't even seen it coming myself.

Sara seemed distracted and uncomfortable. As the three of us sat on the couch watching TV, I noticed Sara's eyes weren't focused on the screen, or on any one thing, for that matter. Her gaze darted about like the eyes of a frog in a pond infested with mosquitoes, like there was too much going on, like she couldn't choose which fly to focus on because her brain had turned to a mass of electrical sparks from all the stimulation, and she couldn't handle it. She looked like she wanted to run, like she'd done the first time Jeremy stepped foot into our house. I didn't want her to run again. I didn't want her to cry again. Another night of tears might kill me.

After asking if he could play the game station and getting my approval, Jeremy slid to the floor to start it up and grab the controller. I took that as my opportunity to slide closer to Sara. Our thighs touched, I smiled at her, and some of the tension in her shoulders loosened slightly. I took a moment to thank the Y chromosome for making men so easily engrossed in virtual reality. Once he started the game, Jeremy could have cared less about Sara or I. His focus was on the screen, and that let my focus be on keeping Sara calm. And it wasn't long until our proximity steadied out the erratic heaving of Sara's chest and inflating lungs.

Jeremy was only at our house for a couple of hours. He left before dinner. I would have let him stay longer, but I knew my mother would ask him all sorts of uncomfortable questions if he sat around the dinner table with us. I didn't need him to stay long, anyway. It was just as fun having him there as it was having him around at school, but a couple of hours was more than enough to dramatically affect Sara - hell, only twenty minutes was able to do that. So my dinner was devoted to my sister, not company. Instead of sitting across the table from me like she usually did, she sat next to me. It ruined our usual absentminded game of footsie, but having her hold my hand under the table like she used to do years ago while we were at tutoring was even better, in my opinion.

After dinner I showered, my normal routine. What wasn't normal was what I found when I came back to my room, still damp and hair dripping. Sara was laying on my bed, hands behind her head and eyes turned upward to the ceiling. When she heard me come in, she turned her head in my direction and sat up on the edge of the bed. I sat next to her, and the springs gave a great creak from our combined weights. The mattress dipped where we sat, slightly puffing up the other end of the bed the way a teeter totter does when all the weight is on one seat. I smiled at her. She wrapped her arms around me.

"You don't smell like him anymore."

I briefly wondered what she meant, but then I remembered that I hugged Jeremy on his way out the door, and his cologne probably left its mark on me. Sara let out a sigh of content and buried her face in my neck. She quickly retreated feeling how wet it still was from my hair and my shower, but she pushed my damp, shoulder length locks aside, pawed at my neck with her shirt sleeve to remove any excess moisture, chuckled lightly, then returned to her spot. I held her close to me and found comfort in having her in my arms.

Eventually we separated, and she fell back onto the bed in the same position she had been before, laying and staring at the ceiling. I again returned to her side, laying in the same position, her left, jutting hipbone coming in contact with my right through our clothes. I debated turning my head to watch her, but I wanted to see what it was about my ceiling that had her so captivated. It certainly had character, signs of human life around it. Cracks and stains of various sizes littered the ceiling. Each held its own story, however boring it may be. I wondered if Sara was trying to come up with ways they appeared, if she was guessing those stories. I couldn't make myself do that, I didn't care about the imperfections, I cared about what they reminded me of. The blots of color against the expanse of white made me think of the specks of light against the plane of dark in the night sky. I resolved that watching the ceiling stars with Sara were almost as good as watching the cosmic ones with her.

We laid like that for a while. I'm not sure how long it had been before our quiet trance was broken by her voice. "He's nice. . . I guess."

"Who?"

"Jeremy." She said his name quietly.

"Oh." Jeremy was the furthest thing from my mind. I was reliving our childhood, and there had certainly been no important male figure then.

"I just..." She stopped and appeared to struggle for her words. "I didn't think you were straight."

I hadn't much thought about my sexuality. I don't think I knew what my label was. I had never been attracted to anyone. Sara was my world. I didn't need a sexuality. One the one hand, I could be a lesbian. If that's what Sara was, then it didn't make sense for me to be anything else. And girls more closely resembled Sara than men. No one could ever be Sara, but at least most women had the same body parts as her. But if I never thought about my sexuality, I didn't see how that ruled out men either. Either way, it didn't matter. Sara was still my world. I didn't want to think about anyone else.

I shrugged in response to her statement. I know she couldn't see it, but she felt the motion as my shoulder brushed against hers.

She went silent again for a while, then interjected minutes later with another question. "Are you happy?"

I shrugged again. That was a question for someone in an actual relationship, something I had never experienced. I didn't know how to answer.

"I want you to be happy..." she trailed off.

She made me happy. She was really the only thing that could. No one else could make me feel as good as she could. "I don't want to talk about Jeremy." I turned my head to her, pressing my face against her shoulder, nuzzling her a bit. She turned her head my way too, and we stared at each other. I think her eyes made me the happiest. I pressed my lips against the cotton covering her shoulder, the pressure bringing me just a bit closer to her. She turned over on her side, resting on the shoulder on which my lips just placed their affection. Her face hovered just a few inches over mine, and again we looked into each other's eyes. Then, delicately, she brought her lips against my own, her own way of bringing me closer. I had to say, I liked her way of showing what she felt better. It was another long kiss, and I was growing quite fond of them. The longer her lips stayed against mine, the better I felt and the happier I was. I yearned for these new kisses, and that night - because of Jeremy - was full of them.


	7. Chapter 7

I masqueraded with Jeremy for a while, but it wasn't long before he noticed that I hadn't called off our façade to date the guy he thought I was chasing. He confronted me about it at lunch one day.

"Who even is this guy?" he asked, shoveling spaghetti into his mouth with his plastic spork. "I don't think I've ever seen you hang out with another guy besides me… or anyone besides me," he added after a moment of thought. "Is my plan not working? Because I can probably come up with another one. I'm pretty good with ideas."

I rolled my eyes at his ego, and munched on my cheese toast slowly, mulling over in my head what I should tell him. He was catching on, and I had some explaining to do. I figured there was no issue with coming clean, he wouldn't be upset. I swallowed.

"Okay, honestly, there is no guy. Sara and I weren't fighting about that. It was just. . . Sister stuff." That was something I didn't feel like explaining to him. I didn't even know if I could put it into words.

"Okay. So why did I have to pretend to be your boyfriend?"

I glared at him, letting my plastic silverware go limp in my hands. "That was _your_ idea. I said not to."

He threw his hands up in defense. "My bad. But you still let me do it."

He had a point. "True. But your plan did work, "I admitted, knowing he would beam the second I said it. "She got mad that I was spending time with you and not her."

He still kept his cocky smile as he talked. "But you guys are good now, right? So you don't need me to pretend anymore."

"No!" I exclaimed too quickly and anxiously. A weird look replaced his arrogant smile, his soiled face half hidden behind his napkin. "I, uh, I still have a little grudge against her. And, uh, I like having an easy way to upset her, if need be," I explained on the spot.

He laughed. "If I had a sibling, I would torture them." If he had a sibling he probably wouldn't think so highly of himself, but at least he wasn't a douche about it. He was still a nice guy who was willing to help me. "Alright. I'll keeping being your 'boyfriend'." He put air quotes around the word. "I want to see how long it takes her to figure it out."

She didn't figure it out. We kept up our game two years, and she didn't figure it out. The truth might have gone unknown to her if Jeremy had kept his mouth shut. If what happened was that we kept up the charade our entire high school career, only to abandon it when Sara and I left home to move in together, suddenly leaving Jeremy behind, then so be it. It looked like that was what was going to happen, and I was going to let it. Something told me things wouldn't go over well if I told Sara I'd been lying to her for two years just to get her attention. I didn't want to find out what the consequences of telling her would be, but I did anyway, because Jeremy decided he would fill her in.

It was on graduation day, right after the ceremony. It was just a little side comment, a joke, a mock. Sara and I stood side by side, still donned in our flowing black robes and tasseled, square caps. I was talking to Jeremy. Our peers stood around us, reminiscing of all the good times they'd had together in the last four years. We were discussing the same, mentioning our inside jokes, remembering when we made fools of ourselves, mocking our least favorite teachers. Then Jeremy said it. He jabbed Sara with his elbow like they'd been good chums since elementary school, and he said it. "And you believed Teegs and I were dating the entire time. Ha!" He burst into a fit of laughter like a giddy schoolboy who had just spilled his best friend's secret - and that's exactly what he had done. The expression on Sara's face was one I never wanted to see again, confusion that led to surprise that led to betrayal. But it was all so subtle. Jeremy had no clue. Only I could understand what she was feeling, only I could see it painted on her face. it made me think of our special bond and that made me feel like I'd dishonored it even more than I already had.

Minutes later our mom hugged us and we said bye to Jeremy. I made no promises to see him again because I didn't know if I was ever going to. He was going off to university in Ontario, and I was flying to Vancouver with Sara. His path branched off onto a road of education with side streets leading to all kinds of opportunities. I'd taken a one way street. At the dead end was Sara. And that's exactly where I wanted to be. But to get there I had to first get in the car. I had to confront that look. And that was the last thing I wanted to do.

But I did it. And it went worse than I thought it would go.

We went home to change clothes in separate rooms, but rejoined shortly after in my room. I could have called it our room at this point. Her room was our room too. We weren't separate enough to have everything be our own. Often we slept together and stayed in the same room together for days at a time. Some of her things lay atop my, thrown there haphazardly by me, but arranged into some sort of order by her, and some of my clothes lay inside her drawers, placed there by Sara after I had changed and left them on the ground. We had always been good at sharing. That's what we did.

And that's why she felt comfortable walking into the space that was labeled mine. But she looked anything but comfortable. I expressed my apologies in my eyes before she even got the chance to start the conversation. She sat with me on the floor, back resting against the blankets draping over the edge of the bed. I played with the hem of her shirt. It was made of silk and it felt lovely sliding between the rough pads of my fingertips. She was quiet and I kept looking up at her to see if she were ready to speak or not. She never was so I went back to preoccupying myself with her shirt each time. Eventually, she removed my hands from her, placing them on the floor. I was disappointed, but I accepted playing with the carpet anyway like a baby switching from breast milk to formula. The change was unwelcome, but equally unstoppable.

"Why did you lie to me?"

"I'm sorry, " I answered.

"That's not what I asked."

I paused, startled. She wasn't going to let me skirt around it like I usually did. She was going to make me answer. How was I supposed to explain myself? I wasn't good with words. I missed our days as kids when one of use could say two words like 'I'm sorry' and the other would understand everything.

"You loved me more because of him."

"No, Tegan, I was jealous because of him."

"But you loved me more."

She shook her head. "Tegan, I loved you long before you knew him and I'll love you long after you forget him. I love you regardless, why can't you understand that?"

That last sentence's sting overpowered her confession of love. I didn't understand her? Of course, I did, I thought. We were twins. I'd always be cose to her. I'd always love her. I'd always understand. She was the one who had drifted. She was the reason we no longer spent nights in our tent. She was why we weren't each other's one and only. If anything, she didn't understand.

I didn't know what to do, so I let instinct take over. I kissed her. It had always worked as kids. So I leaned in like a gladiator giving a feverish swing after taking a hit to the eyes, acting almost impulsively, only his passion, gut, and training allowing him to keep fighting as hard as he could. But with such a blind move, Sara was quick to stop me. She pushed me away, her fingertips dug into the outer plate over the hollow of my chest. Her touch seared through my shirt and into my skin. Tears stung the corners of my eyes. I was on fire. I leaned in to her again, desperate. She pushed me away again, using the force she used against me to pull herself to her feet. "Tegan, no! God! What's wrong with you? Talk to me! We never talk! Fuck."

Talking wasn't my skill. She knew that. I kept quiet.

"You didn't used to be like this. Why are you so jealous?"

I'd been jealous my whole life. I was acting the way I'd acted my whole life. I'd always had these feelings. Maybe I'd gotten worse at hiding them, but had really never realized how obsessive I was?

I didn't have a word to say. Not one. And she apparently didn't have a lick of patience. "I can't do this. I'm sorry, Tegan, but I can't."

She left. I didn't stop her. I put my head in my lap and laced my fingers through my chocolate locks, testing the slack between my scalp and my skull. The tears fell, but I barely noticed.

I guess she really was done. She stopped talking to me, avoided me even. There was no more sleeping together. There was no more affection. There was no more anything. She acted like I was as about as important to her as that little girl was to her brother that day we were forced to meet our neighbors all those years ago. It was like what happened Joan all over again. Except this time it was worse. Anger wasn't fueling either of us. She was so unemotional. So indifferent.

I'd really fucked up. But I didn't know how to fix it. So I tried to ignore the problem, hoping that it would go away by itself. She would come back to me sooner or later, I figured. We were twins. She couldn't stay upset forever. I decided that I would forgive me when she forgave me. Until then I'd feel like shit and regret what I had done. It was what I deserved. I didn't deserve to see her face. I didn't deserve to hear her voice. I didn't deserve her company. I respected her distance. I needed to be punished for a while.

I just didn't necessarily think that while would be the few weeks before we left. I packed my suitcases in silence. Her door was open across the hall, and I could see her doing the same. It wasn't a big deal, I shrugged it off. We'd make up in Vancouver. It would be just the two of us. I'd be the only thing she had and everything would be okay again.

Our parents drove us there and hugged us at the entrance door. They were teary, but Sara and I weren't. I didn't know what was going through her head, but I was nervous. Butterflies filled my stomach. I was only a couple hours away from being isolated from the world with the one person that mattered to me. Sure, that person was upset with me, but I was confident it wouldn't stay that way for long. Despite the fact that she was upset with me, we walked through the airport side by side, tickets clutched in our hands. A woman over the speakers announced which flights were leaving soon. Vancouver was on the list. Our pace picked up a bit as we hurried to the gates. Both of us were silent, still on a no talking basis. I had the strongest urge to hold her hand, to comfort both of us like the gesture had done when we were little.

I found the gate labeled 'Vancouver.' I let out a sigh. This was it. This was the beginning of my future. I stepped into the line of people waiting for their tickets to be processed. I was going to look straight ahead and try to calm myself, but something was off. Something wasn't right. I turned around and Sara wasn't in line behind me. Some man with a briefcase was. I looked frantically for Sara and found her beside me on the other side of the barrier. I looked at her, panicked, confused, and relieved all at once. My mouth began forming the first syllable of my question, but she spoke before I regained my voice. She looked me in the eyes with reluctance, the same way she'd been doing the last few weeks as she avoided my gaze. "Bye, Tee."

I panicked more. "Wh - Where are you going?"

She dropped her eyes and spun around. I stared at the back of her jacket, silently wishing there were answers written on it. She paused a moment, then twisted her head back around to meet my eyes once again. "Montreal."


	8. Chapter 8

It was so surreal. I barely registered the plane ride, my very first. It felt like I had slept the whole way, but I didn't remember closing my eyes. I remembered inflating and deflating my lungs in the quiet. The plane wings ripped through the air, but no words did the same. It had been sterily silent. I was paranoid that everyone could hear my thoughts, that they would be the only noise, however white, disrupting the cabin. So I didn't think, and it was a blessing not to.

But it was a shock to land, grab my luggage from the carousel, and walk outside to a whole new world. I was shoved back into reality, but it was a completely new one. I'd rarely been outside of Calgary, and all of my senses were focused on what was around me. It was a great distraction from thinking about Sara, something I wasn't ready to do yet.

I managed to hail a cab. The driver asked where I was going, but I hadn't tested out my vocal cords since I'd boarded the plane, and I didn't have my new address memorized yet. I fished through my coat pockets to find the small slip of paper that contained all the information about my future. I handed it to him, thinking the scratch of paper against skin was better than the scratch of my voice. He committed the street name to memory in no more than three seconds and handed the white strip back to me. His thumb print was coded on it in Cheetoh dust.

I watched the scenery, trying to make a mental map, deciding where each running building would be placed on it. But the buildings weren't just runners, they were sprinters, and I couldn't keep up with them. By the time I'd decided to give up trying to remember their locations, the taxi stopped. The cabbie unloaded the trunk and told me my new apartment was "that brick one over there." I paid him, and he left me on the side walk and sped down the road to catch his next customer at the street corner.

I gripped the handles on both of my suitcases and rolled them across the uneven pavement. I hoisted them over the edge of the side walk, and the wheels glided much more smoothly. Entering the door of the brick building my cabbie had directed me towards, the luggage wheels jerked across the metal stop. I had a better map of the ruts in the ground than I did of the neighborhood.

I unfolded the paper again to check for the apartment number. I was on the second floor, and I could see my room from the stairs. My only problem was how I would get my stuff up to it. I'd been able to roll my luggage thus far, but I would have to carry it up the stairs, and I hadn't packed lightly. Grabbing the handle of the lighter suitcase with both hands, I managed to hoist it up the steps. Panting, I descended again to start the second lap. But the next suitcase was much heavier. I tugged at its edges and attempted to carry its weight, but half way up the flight my arms gave out on me. My fingers snapped open and my grip released, sending my suitcase down the stairs. It tumbled down them like a slinky and I winced as it thunked on each step, sending me back at Start like some aggravating board game. I was thankful it was done falling when it finally hit the lobby floor, but then I heard a voice and it brought back all of my anxiety.

"Woah! Are you trying to kill someone?" The tone of the voice was teasing and followed by a light, barely audible chuckle, but I still went pale, embarrassed. A woman rounded the corner with a smile on her face. She eyed my bags, the one on the ground and the one laid flat at the top of the stairwell. "Wow, you haven't even moved in yet and you already hold grudges against your neighbors. Usually that doesn't happen until one of you college kids throws a party. Or when Mr. Johnson backs into you. He refuses to get glasses. If you drive, I suggest not parking anywhere near the white suburban." She pointed to my abused, fallen suitcase. "You need some help with that?"

Before I could respond this tiny, no more than 5 foot 100 pound woman had lifted my cumbersome luggage over her head. Her biceps, uncovered by her tank top, bulged and her calves tightened as she ascended the steps. She sped past me, still leaning by the banister, to the second floor without breaking a sweat. "There you go." She deposited the case next to its brother and smiled at me warmly. I watched her descended again, stunned. "If you need anything else, I'm downstairs." She pointed back the way she came with an outstretched thumb. "First door on the right." She gripped the handle of the main doors and I realized that she hadn't come out of her apartment just to help me. She was in a tank top and shorts; jogging gear. That explained her strength. With no effort the door cracked open, but the woman didn't immediately exit. "Oh, I'm Lindsey, by the way." She made her move to leave and I panicked to give her some kind of response or acknowledgement. This kind stranger deserved my first words in Vancouver. "T-Tegan!" I managed to stutter out, my voice just as raspy as I thought it would be.

She smiled again. It was a nice smile. "See you later, Tegan."

The kindness of this random woman - Lindsey - startled me. I was so used to being invisible, a nobody in high school. I assumed the real world would be the same way, full of grown up high schoolers, but this woman was not what I had expected. She was older than me, obviously, but only by a few years. She couldn't be older than twenty-five, and her actual age was probably closer to the lower twenties. Could her age really be the source of her generosity?

Whatever it was that had made this woman special had left an impression on me. She said she would see me later, and since she lived in the same building as I did, I knew it wasn't a hollow goodbye. I started thinking about the next time I saw her and how often I would see her after that. I thought about what I could say to get to know her. Could I make a legitimate friend? One nicer and more genuine than Jeremy who was also someone that I didn't share blood with? Maybe the real world was full of Lindseys that I could get to know.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking of Sara and how I'd never be able to connect with anyone like I could with her. I'd spent my life trying to prove my unrequited loyalty to her. Even thinking about someone else felt like betraying her. But she had betrayed me, and I deserved my distractions.

I suppose that's what Lindsey was at first, a soul to keep me company and keep me from thinking about Sara's absence. I accompanied Lindsey on her daily jobs. I learned that she was a photographer from L.A. who had moved up to Vancouver for the scenery. She'd only been here about six months and hadn't met many people. I found that hard to believe. How was everyone who passed her not immediately drawn to her? She was so nice. I didn't understand, but I didn't care. The fact that I was her only friend just let me spend more time with her. And I spent a lot of time with her. I hated being alone in my apartment. It was too quiet and it didn't feel like home. Nothing felt like home. Sara was my home. My home was in Montreal.

Silence made me think of Sara because there was nothing else to think of or to do. Every time I crawled into bed it hurt. There was an empty pillow next to me and I was only using half the blanket. It wasn't right. Sara should have been here with me. I had never been separated from her before and I didn't want to think about it. Lindsey's apartment was only a staircase away and I gave into the temptation to visit her quite often.

I stayed there as late and I could. We talked and watched movies and ate dinner together. Sometimes we'd discuss the arrangement of her furniture while we shoveled Chinese take out into our waiting mouths. Neither of us were very good cooks, but she did have an eye for design. Her specialty was photography, but I could tell she had a natural eye for color and space. She appreciated the beautiful. Excited and proud, she'd share her latest photos with me. I didn't know what it was but even the simple ones, fields of flowers, crowded streets, the lucky snap of a shutter as a bird lifted its wings for flight, all had this impressiveness. The longer I looked at the photos, the more detail I noticed. The more detail I noticed, the more I appreciated the beauty. I'd spent my whole life staring at only Sara. Had I always been surrounded by these majestic scenes or was it something about the medium? I'd never noticed these things. I regretted my obviousness, but at the same time I wondered what Lindsey's cameras could do with Sara's beauty.

Lindsey took her fair share of photos of me, and I figured that was the closest thing I could compare photographs of Sara to. But when I looked at myself, I didn't see two people like I had when we were kids. The girl staring back at me had eyes heavy and dark. Sara's eyes were always filled with life and light. The darker girl was obviously me. All the emptiness I felt, I could see it inside of Lindsey's photographs, even if I was giving a small smile, amused at Lindsey's game. Lindsey was good at reading her subject, and she saw the emptiness too.

I knew things about Lindsey. We'd become close enough that she'd told me some of her real motives for leaving home. I knew of the strained relationship she'd built with some of her family, but when she asked about my true intentions and my family and why I was so obviously upset, I had a difficult time sharing with her. I denied it all at first. I really didn't want to talk about Sara. I knew if I ever let myself think about her so unrestrictedly and truthfully, I would stain each section of Lindsey's shoulder twice over. I'd be a mess if I ever faced it. But taking away that part of my past, I found I had no stories to tell. I couldn't give fake explanations for anything. I couldn't share with her the small, intimate details of my childhood like she'd shown to me. When she told me about her pants ripping in third grade during gymnastics practice, I couldn't tell her about the time in kindergarten our mother packed Sara and I leaky cups that forced us to wear sticky, chocolate milk-stained T-shirts for the rest of the day after lunch. There wasn't a moment of my childhood, embarrassing, sad, or happy that didn't involve Sara. So I couldn't tell Lindsey anything about my past. I was just some girl from Calgary that had moved here after high school. Other than that I was nothing, and I wondered if my anonymity ever bothered her. I didn't like hiding from her, but it was more important to hide Sara from myself.

But Sara was no small thing and I couldn't keep her concealed forever. For as much time as I spent in Lindsey's apartment, she spent an equal amount of time in mine. She offered to help me decorate shortly after I met her, excited to make her mark on virgin walls. I had been homesick since the second I boarded the plane and Lindsey's first suggestion to make me feel more comfortable was to hang up pictures. She didn't realize that I longed for a person, not memories attached to a building, but I obliged her, letting her dig through the only box I'd brought that held such sentimentality. The pictures located just underneath the stiff cardboard flap, were more recent. They were all pictures of me that Sara had taken or pictures of Sara that I had taken. I hadn't thought about anything of Sara's being so close to me, especially something as blunt as a picture until Lindsey touched the unopened box. She immediately picked up a frame and laughed. "Oh, this is as great picture of you," She said sarcastically while shoving the rectangle of plastic and mahogany in my face. It was a picture of Sara sticking her tongue out at me, displeased by my surprise photoshoot. I froze as fright paled my face and worked its way through the rest of my body, blanketing my skin white like an avalanche. Lindsey didn't understand the significance. She didn't know that there was two of me. As soon as I regained control of my body, I snatched the picture and the whole box from her. I laid Sara back inside it, face down, quickly wedged the flaps shut, and shoved the box under the bed. Lindsey looked more than puzzled, but I was unwilling to match up any of the pieces for her. "I don't think there are any pictures I want to hang." Lindsey remained silent, inquisitive, but unquestioning.

I'm not sure how or why she put up with my odd behavior, but she did. I knew she was curious, but I couldn't thank her for not being pushy, no matter how much I wanted to. Curiosity did get the best of her, though. That box was tempting. It was mysterious and she wasn't sure why I had made it that way. It wasn't like I kept it hidden from her. I was the sole ignorer of its existence. It was only a matter of time before she couldn't stand it anymore.

She allowed me constant access to her apartment, and I returned the favor, just in case either of us needed company, a change in scenery, or an item the other possessed. I came home one day from work (I'd managed to find a job in a bookstore. Sara loved books and being around them all day helped me feel closer to her. Maybe she happened to be in a bookstore in Montreal at the same time I was working in one.) to find Lindsey on my bedroom floor, the box's contents dissected from it. Spread out before her were an array of pictures spanning the past eighteen years of my life. I was present twice in nearly all of them.

"I didn't know you had a twin."

I broke down and told her everything. I'd been storing my entire life in my head the past few months and with her discovery I could no longer keep it all a secret. I told her about my family, and I told her about school, but mostly I told her about Sara. Sara was everything I knew. Sara tied into every experience I'd ever had. Sara was me.

Every moment I'd ever held dear began flowing from my lips, and I'm not sure when the flood would have stopped had Lindsey not dammed it herself. Lindsey's quiet lips met my animated ones and everything seemed to pause. I had never kissed anyone but Sara and Lindsey's lips felt too foreign against my own. Her lips were smaller and firmer and they didn't mesh quite as well as Sara's plumper lips had against my identical ones. The kiss was salty and contrasted with Sara's sweet taste. The differences made me anxious, and something in me felt wrong. But kissing Lindsey was still . . . pleasurable, despite the unnatural feel of it. It wasn't too incredibly awkward for me to rationalize kissing my best friend. While she wasn't Sara, she wasn't no one either.

Part of me felt that Sara was the only one I should ever be this close to, but kissing Lindsey got easier. At first I made her initiate it, afraid that if I started it I'd upset Sara or myself somehow, but I realized doing nothing upset Lindsey, and I couldn't stand that either. Eventually her kisses grew on me and I was able to get past the differences, a task that had never been easy for me. Kissing became habit, a natural thing to do. It was a nice rhythm that relaxed me. The entire new relationship dynamic Lindsey and I formed relaxed me. The kisses, surprise cuddles, holding her frame in my arms while we slept, they all felt good. She was smaller than me, but her muscles gave her a bulky feel and I could almost pretend that we were the same size. I liked that.

Without Lindsey I couldn't have adjusted to a life without Sara. I don't know what I would have done without the contact of my twin if Lindsey hadn't been there to distract me and make me feel better about myself. I could almost conceive a happy life without regular interaction with Sara. Almost. Deep down I knew it was impossible, but I didn't have to come to that conclusion all on my own. Sara helped me in that realization with just one phone call.


	9. Chapter 9

The snow and the jets glided through the air in opposite directions, simultaneously defying gravity. I watched them from a lonely row of chairs that looked like they belonged on a bus more than they belonged in an airport. I sat in front of two wide, thick-glassed windows in my oversized black fleece trench coat, watching the hustle and bustle of the outside world. When I shifted the buttons of my jacket clicked and the fabric rustled. My luggage bumped against the side of my calf. I didn't move. The outside world moved enough for everyone. The airplanes drifted away, their engines becoming inaudible in the distance, lost in the wind, but the snow remained steady and there was no denying it was the middle of winter.

The ambience reminded me of all the winters of my childhood. Sara and I stayed inside those months, cuddled on the couch watching cartoons in our pajamas while our mother brought us hot chocolate. We kept a thin red blanket on the back of the couch, and it always ended up draped across our laps, our knobby knees kissing beneath the covers. I wanted that to happen again. I wanted Sara to chug her hot chocolate the moment it was a withstandable temperature then frowned when it was gone so that I could give her the rest of my cup and watch her smile. Maybe, I thought briefly, this was something I could do with Lindsey. But then I remembered I was going home and I wanted to do it with Sara all over again.

Sara told me she wanted me to come home for Christmas. Just by saying those words it meant that she thought home was Calgary and not Montreal. I thought the same when I was thinking of a place and not the temple of Sara, which was my true domain. Whichever way I thought of it, I was eager to return to where I belonged. I had finally started settling into Vancouver and Lindsey, but hearing Sara's voice in those brief moments after such a long time without it made me anxious and restless as I had been before. Lindsey saw what Sara could do to me so easily and immediately she was telling me to order a plane ticket. I went online that afternoon, and I wanted to order two boarding passes, not one. Part of me was frightened and needed Lindsey to help keep me company as I rejoined my other half. Part of me wanted to bring her along and show Sara that I was still alive because of this girl. (Also, I knew my mother would be pleased, proud, and excited, clapping her hands together in joy that I had found someone else besides my sister to make me happy.) I wanted to show her off and I wanted to use her to make Sara regretful for leaving me. I wanted Lindsey there, but that was only a part of me, and Lindsey herself didn't want to come. I think she knew. I think she saw in my eyes what I really wanted; to go be with Sara and never come back.

"Go see your sister," she told me. "You haven't seen your family in a long time. I haven't seen mine either. Go. Everything will be ok." She soothed me enough that I agreed, ordering a single plane ticket to Calgary, and then buying her ticket to LA. I was in control of where everyone was going this time. She couldn't pull any surprises on me in the airport.

There was a night of frantic packing and darting between apartments, followed by exhaustion and only a small window of sleep. We laid in my bed and Lindsey passed out in my arms almost immediately. I couldn't fall asleep so easily, so I pulled the cover over our bodies, held her, and stared at our bags on the floor. My suitcase was propped up against hers. The night would have been easier, I thought, if Lindsey was with me all the time and all of our stuff was in the same apartment. I could lock my door if she lived with me.

Early in the morning we took a cab to the airport. She offered to carry my luggage as well as her own, knowing I had a bad track record with carrying suitcases, but I wanted to hold her hand as long as we were still together, so I carried my own bags until we reached the terminals and had to go our separate ways. We hugged and kissed goodbye and neither of us carried any weight then, our bags on the floor and our worries elsewhere for the brief moment. I watched her leave and go through inspection until I couldn't see her anymore. Then I turned around and took a seat. I wanted to be the snow so I could be everywhere.

The same white blanket was covering Calgary. I watched it fall and drape over the landscape for the entirety of the plane ride. I felt bad for the flakes unlucky enough to be severed and melted by the wings of the plane. Their journey was cut short, and they didn't even get to fully experience the thrill of the sky dive. But they dripped from the wings as water to rejoin their brothers, the same stuff in just a different form with more battle scars.

I noticed two things about the airport when I landed in Calgary. One was the snow, and the other was that I exited from the same boarding pad I'd boarded on my flight to Vancouver. I looked to my left to see a sign for a flight from Montreal that had also just landed, and my heart skipped a beat when I thought for a moment that I'd see Sara coming back to the spot where she'd left me. Then I remembered that she had called me from Calgary and she was already here. My mood fell slightly, but then it rose again. She was here! She'd be arriving from the airport entrance, not the landing dock, but I would still get to see her here today. I rushed to the baggage claim and back as quickly as I could. I had to get outside to find mom's car, and I didn't care that the cold blanket was draping over me. My body would warm with my twin in my sight and her seat mere feet from mine in the car.

Some cars left the parking garage. Other cars parked. Taxis cabs with pick-ups and drop-offs slammed their doors and rushed away behind and beside each other. In the midst of it all was my mother's ride, small and dark compared to the yellow cabs and large colorful vans flashing their transportation companies' logos and their promise of car rental and vacation at the end of the shockingly quick ride. I rushed to the car as quickly as I could, my luggage hindering me and making my steps resemble those of a child too pudgy and too new to the life of a biped. I dropped my things on the street, and I didn't care which way they fell and coated themselves in chunky, gray slush. I cupped my hands around the glass of the driver's side window and flashed my biggest smile. My breath misted the thin glass between my hands. I could see my mother smile back at me the way she did when I was a child. I could see the youth in her wrinkles. She was younger and older at the same time, and I wrapped my arms around her miniature body when she opened the door to me. Her feet stumbled against the slippery slush, and I held her steady with my arms. She cupped my cheeks in her hands, gave me a long look, and I knew she'd missed me. She twisted her face to kiss the chilled cheeks her frozen palms held, and my eyes shifted over her shoulder to the empty passenger seat and the empty rear of the car. Sara did not walk around the side of the vehicle to help me with my bags. It was just my mother and I who took turns shoving my luggage into the trunk. When we were all loaded up, I sat in the passenger's seat where Sara should have been, and it was not warmed by her person. I felt as empty as the last time I'd been left in this airport alone.

My mom turned the volume on the radio all the way to the left and told me with a lilt of joy and relief in her voice how much she'd missed me. I asked where Sara was.

"Home helping your aunt hang decorations. You know how Julie needs supervision," she joked. I didn't laugh. Sara had managed to escape me once again. But this would be the last time. There was one thing I knew and that was that me and Sara were not meant to be apart, not from the very second we were created. She couldn't run forever.

I could feel Sara getting closer. I'd always been able to tell if my twin was near me. Even when my eyes were closed in sleep my dreams were affected by the presence of my twin. If Sara left at any point during the night to use the bathroom or get a glass of water, my body knew it and an unsettling feeling took over my dreams. My brow knitted in my sleep, then relaxed when Sara's body returned next to mine. If I remembered incongruous dark parts of my dreams, then I knew Sara had been restless during the night. When I woke up the next morning with this realization, I automatically turned and cupped my body tight around Sara's so she couldn't leave me again. I had experienced quite a bit of this unease in Vancouver when I'd first moved, but the nightmares happened less often with Lindsey in bed with me. I thought maybe my twin sensors had been numbed due to the distance, but they had been heightened and everything in my body was on edge and aware that Sara was just a car ride away.

But why hadn't she come with Mom to see me? Julie would be perfectly fine alone for half an hour. Did Mom really make Sara stay behind, or did Sara volunteer? Did she want to be in the car with me right now? Had she wanted to be in my arms, wrapped around my torso the way Mom had been? Could she sense that I was near? Was she excited to be around me, or was she dreading my presence? She ran off to Montreal to avoid seeing me. Why would she want me around now? I had too many questions to ask her, and I didn't know which to bring up first. I hoped she'd see me and understand, read my thoughts and feelings instantly like a twin should be able to do. She knew me well enough to know what I wanted to say. Could either of us had changed that much in the separation to affect our connection?

The house looked beautiful from the curb. It outshined every house on the block in terms of decoration, and it immediately put me in that festive holiday mood. I hadn't paid attention to a single holiday that year except from noting when I got an extra day off work. Without Sara I didn't feel the desire to celebrate, and Lindsey hadn't pushed any parties or costumes or themed decorations on either of our apartments. The year had gone by uneventfully, but now that the house was decked with holly and Christmas lights and I knew my family was inside – knew my sister was inside – some Christmas cheer worked its way into my heart. I didn't feel like The Grinch anymore.

"The house looks beautiful, Mom," I said in awe, closing my car door and grabbing my bags from the trunk. "I love the lights." Before, we'd always had standard strings of lights, little bulbs with a rainbow of colors. This year the roof was accented with a line of fake icicles, glowing blue and giving the illusion that they could fall at any moment.

"Your sister chose the lights." My mom smiled at me, grabbing the bags I couldn't carry. "Even hung 'em up herself. For such a small girl she had no problem getting right on that ladder and hooking them up there."

My heart grew another size. Of course my favorite piece had been one Sara picked out.

Despite the warmth of nostalgia, the cold seemed to steal my breath again. We were walking now, rolling my bags against the stone walkway, bringing me closer to Sara. The icicles looked even better close up. I watched them, waiting for one to break as my mother opened the door.

"Guess who's here!" she shouted, walking into the house first and ushering me in behind her. Aunt Julie jumped from the couch and hugged me even tighter than my mom did in the airport parking garage. I smiled at her, and she commented on how big I'd gotten. But with her only being 4'9", it wasn't hard to be bigger than her. She commented on Sara and I's height every time she saw us, even though we stopped growing years ago.

Julie continued speaking to me, but I didn't hear a word she said. Over her head was a mirror; my reflection. On top of a step ladder, body leaning towards the tip of the Christmas tree in the corner of the living room, was Sara. My heart stopped.

She looked so good. She'd let her hair grow out, the chocolate locks kissing the tips of her shoulders now as they fell away from her skull. Her frame was still lean and muscular and I could tell she'd been keeping up some kind of diet and workout routine. Her body was more fit than my own, but she was always the stronger one. It suited her. She looked healthy, as good as I'd ever seen her, and I knew I had to look like a wreck. My body had been through too much the past year to show the same signs of success and health that Sara's did. I hadn't eaten right when I first moved to Vancouver, and even though I'd gotten an appetite back because of Lindsey, I still couldn't eat like I had before. I was skinnier than usual, and I became suddenly self-conscious that my bones would show through my ribcage. I didn't want to show Sara that I had been a wreck without her, but whether the hardships manifested themselves physically or not, I knew Sara knew how rough loneliness had been on me. She knew she was my life force.

I noted the ladder and chuckled a little, expelling the small breath still held in my lungs in short gasps. Mom was right. Sara was small. The step ladder elevated her to the same height as the tree, making it easier for her to place the small plastic angel in her hand on the tip of the fake, green pine. Once the topper was in place, Sara climbed down the miniature steps and plugged a power cord into the wall. The angel lit up, casting a soothing shade of golden yellow onto the tree, making the ornaments glimmer. I looked to the angel's smile. It was perfect. She reminded me of Sara.

My own smile had relaxed my lungs and soon air was flowing back into them. I felt a peace and the tingling warmth of completeness. It no longer felt like I was running on fifty percent. My other half was in the same room as me, and I realized how long it had been since I'd felt like a whole person like this.

Sara's eyes were on me, and I could see the hesitation in them. My eyes instantly mirrored the same apprehension, and we stood there, still and unmoving, waiting for the other to do something. How did we approach each other? She had left me, and I didn't feel like I could run up to her and engulf her, squeeze every ounce of my love into her and tell her how much she meant to me like I wanted to. I felt the need to hold back, like if I didn't stay still I was afraid I was going to suffocate her with affection and anger her.

"Don't just stand there!" My mom broke the silence. "Go hug your sister!" Her hand pushed lightly against my shoulder, sending me a foot or so forward, but I was still panicking and couldn't propel myself the rest of the way towards Sara like she had instructed. Sara saw my internal struggle and did the work for me, approaching me. I'd never felt as warm as I did when her arms lightly wrapped around me then. Her body was heavenly, and I never wanted to let go. The world melted away around me and I forgot all about how she left me in Vancouver without so much as a warning. We were back together again and that's all that mattered. Her head was on my shoulder, and I wanted so badly to pull her back to eye level and kiss her.

"I missed you," I said instead and my voice felt foreign in my dry mouth.

"I missed you too," she replied softly, and I could tell it was genuine. Any hurt she'd caused me, it didn't matter now. She was my Sara and I forgave her.

"Help your sister carry her bags to her room, Sar," my mom interrupted again, the hug between Sara and I still lingering. We broke away, dazed by the memory of other people in the room, and Sara quickly reached for the handle of one of my bags by the door. Even though her body had separated from mine, I didn't feel empty. I followed her lead, grabbing bags and heading into the hallways of my familiar childhood home, my true home.

We were barely in the doorway of my room before she tossed my stuff onto the side of the bed and latched onto me again, her arms around my waist. I let go of the handles in my grip, letting my bags fall to the floor, and held her back, my arms around her shoulders. Her head buried itself into my chest, and I embraced the warmth once again. My chin rested against the crown of her head until I couldn't take it anymore. My lips were on fire and I had to put them on her, where they belonged. First, I kissed the top of her head where my chin had sat, but then I gently lifted her own chin and brought her face to mine. Our lips melted together. It felt like home. Lindsey's lips never felt like this against my own.

"I'm sorry," she said, breaking the kiss, and I couldn't tell if she was apologizing for stopping the moment or leaving me at the airport.

"It's okay," I said anyway, feeling better than I had in months even though the kiss was short and already starting to forgive her for moving away from me even though that had been anything but okay. "I love you," I tried, suddenly needing to hear it back, to make sure she still felt that way about me.

"I love you too, Tegan." Her head was on my chest again, and I could feel her breath on my collar bone even thorough the fabric of my shirt. Everything about her was warm. "I really do, Tee."

I believed her because we were twins and I knew she had to feel what I was feeling, even if just by association.

"Do you trust me?" she asked out of the blue, and I didn't think it was a question that needed to be asked. Love and trust were synonymous in my opinion, and I had always felt both for Sara. Even after she had gone behind my back to move to the other side of the country, I still trusted her completely.

"Of course I do."

"Then don't sleep in here tonight. When we go to bed come to my room. Just like we used to, okay?"

I nodded my head, knowing she could feel the movement over my rib cage, despite not being able to see it. "Okay," I agreed, unable to tell her exactly how excited I felt at the notion of our school days, of those times when we were always inseparable and she didn't live three thousand miles away, when we could sleep in the same bed every night and not have to arrange plans to do it. I didn't know how to tell her about all the butterflies hatching in my stomach, so I just admired their beauty and held her as they took flight.


	10. Chapter 10

I'd gotten used to take out in the last six months. Lindsey had spent more time in her life photographing food than cooking it, and I was certainly no chef. More often than not our nights ended with one of our coffee tables littered with Chinese takeout pails and us snuggling on the couch, avoiding cleaning up our mess. Lindsey would lick soy sauce off the corner of my mouth and it would remind me of when Mom would lick her thumb and smudge whatever streak of dirt Sara had managed to get on her face from playing outside, making me jealous because I thought I could take care of Sara just fine, clean her up and preserve the clothes Mom had sewn for us from the filth. Seeing that my mom and aunt had cooked a hot meal for Christmas Eve dinner ignited a desire for a home cooked meal I'd long forgotten I'd repressed.

As soon as I sat in that chair and saw my mom decking the table with gravy boats and honey ham, I realized how hungry I was. I'd eaten last night, but couldn't stomach anything before my flight because of the nerves. (I told Lindsey I couldn't eat because I was afraid of getting sick on the plane if I had a full stomach.) I'd refused the bag of peanuts on the aircraft and stuffed them into my carry on in case Sara or Mom wanted them to munch on before dinner, but I'd forgotten about them and hadn't even offered the roasted peanuts to either of them. The chestnuts on the table looked more appetizing anyway, and they were very much worth the wait.

My mouth was salivating, drool dripping onto my plate like ladled gravy. My saucer was piled before anyone could even suggest whether or not we should go traditional and say grace, at least this one time a year. My fork plopped into a thick puddle of mashed potatoes, spun the thick chunks of spud around the prongs like pasta, and launched the gathered blob into my mouth before anyone could say "takeoff" or "let's dig in."

Instantly I remembered why I wasn't a chef: no one in my family could cook. I couldn't tell which of my elders had provided the potatoes, but I could easily palet out the recipe; equal parts butter and instant mashed potatoes. Someone had obviously tasted their disaster and cut up herbs to dump into the bowl to make it look fancy, hoping to deceive the tongue by enticing the eye. It accomplished stage one of its plan, meaning I actually put it into my mouth, but the decision was one I regretted immediately, and whatever herb that was was chopped nowhere near finely enough and its leafy texture stayed glued to the roof of my mouth like sandpaper peanut butter. I munched through the glob in triumph and smiled awkwardly at my family as the buttery mixture tried climbing back up my throat.

"Wow, Tegan you must have been hungry," my mother commented, staring at my quick ingestion. "Were the potatoes good?"

I nodded out of guilt, afraid if I opened my mouth the mush would come back up.

My mom seemed content and shoveled a wooden spoonful onto her own plate.

Sara, however, could read me better than anyone else and avoided the mashed potatoes, choosing the contents of her meal carefully and slowly before thanking me by eyeing me across the table and letting me know she'd seen through me, learned from my mistake.

Now I was hungry but too mortified to touch anything else on my plate. Once bitten twice shy was a real thing, especially when it literally applied to biting into food. I just stared at my plate in contempt, hating it for everything it was and wishing Lindsey and I were spending Christmas together on my couch with rice between our chopsticks.

A kick from beneath the table forced me to look up from my plate and my thoughts. Hazel orbs, almost brown from the cold, reflected my now muddled thoughts as all images of Lindsey left my mind. I couldn't help but smile. After all the things I'd missed doing with Sara in the last year - Thanksgiving, Halloween, buying furniture - Sara and I had never missed a Christmas together. Nineteen years straight we had always been in the same city, the same house, the same living room on Christmas morning as we opened presents. As much as I wanted to spend the holiday with Lindsey, I wanted to spend it even more with Sara.

I wished she were sitting next to me so that I could hold her hand and maybe fake cry into her shoulder at the state of the food and my hunger, but she opened her mouth, stuck out her tongue, and shoved her finger down her throat and the laugh I couldn't hold back made me feel better.

We took small bites, realizing overcooked ham and undercooked green beans were more tolerable in smaller doses. Mom and Aunt Julie chit chatted with one another, visiting before Julie left after dinner, and I was thankful the invasive questioning about Sara and I's new adult lives wouldn't be a topic of conversation until tomorrow morning when the three of us were alone.

It almost felt like Sara and I were in our own little private world at the dinner table, unable to speak but not needing to because we could communicate with our eyes just as effectively as with words. After six months, that connection of communication between us hadn't died, and if that didn't mean anything about how good we were for each other, nothing in the world did. Lindsey gave me comfort, but nothing matched the ease of being with Sara.

The idea of spending tonight in bed with her filled my stomach with enough butterflies that I almost wasn't hungry anymore for anything but Sara. I had so many questions. Did our hearts still beat in sync? Had Mom kept Sara's used sheets on her bed after all these months? Did Sara's room still smell like her with little hints of me in every corner because I had practically lived in there with her? Why did Sara ask if she still had my trust before she proposed sleeping in the same bed again?

I was anxious for dinner to end. Full bellies and dishes in the sink meant Aunt Julie would leave before we recruited her for the cleanup crew, and Julie leaving meant Sara and I only had to socialize with Mom, and she would surely be too exhausted to stay up after undressing the table and scrubbing dishes, quickly ushering both of us to bed as well with promises of Santa only descending the chimney we didn't have while we were asleep, just like she told us as kids.

Even as a kid, however, Christmas morning and the presents it brought were the only part of the holiday season I really enjoyed. Feasts that weren't catered in or hosted at another relative's house were disappointing, and family gatherings meant more time Sara and I couldn't be alone and doing our own thing in the backyard oasis of our tent. Seeing the family did come with reassurance that no one but our mother and father could tell us apart, and being called "them" and "saraandtegan" was satisfying on a deeper level than being addressed as an individual.

Just as Sara and I were always partners then, we were partners now. Mom scrubbed, Sara rinsed, and I dried, like an assembly line for dishes. I wanted to put my thumbs in Sara's belt loops and pull her closer to me like I did to Lindsey when she and I finally caved to the mountains of dishes in our sinks and split the duties between us, but Mom was right next to us and she'd wonder why Sara and I were standing so close. She always wanted to know why we were so close. She didn't have a twin. Her Julie wasn't the same as my Sara, so she could never understand. But why did her inability to comprehend from personal reference or experience stop me from hugging Sara's middle and nuzzling my face into her neck and smearing bubbles on her chin to make her look like Santa? I could do those things with Lindsey in public and people would dismiss it as the typical type of affection couples showed.

That was it. That was why I couldn't. It made Sara and I look like a couple. But she was my twin, my other half. Still, we kissed and hugged and cuddled each other at night and woke up together in the morning to each other's kisses. With anyone else, I would consider those actions romantic. Was I romantically attracted to my sister?

Is that why I felt guilty at first letting Lindsey move her things into my apartment, press her lips against my own, give 'us' a title that signified I was hers and she was mine? Because I was already _taken_?

But Lindsey and I weren't official yet. She knew that I couldn't do that to Sara, couldn't comfortably commit so publically like that. I loved Lindsey though. There was no doubt about it. Lindsey was the only thing keeping me sane, keeping me happy. She took such good care of me when I first moved to Vancouver without Sara for the first time in my life. She sensed all of my little quirks and was so patient, put up with me even as I told her how much I cared about Sara when she wanted to be the one I cared so much about. Then I realized that Lindsey must have known (or thought because 'knew' implied that I'd already accepted it, and I wasn't ready to think about Sara with the girlfriend title I was almost ready to crown Lindsey with) that I loved Sara in that romantic sense as well, thought it and accepted the incestuous implication before it had even crossed my own mind. If she still cared for me knowing my feelings for Sara, then I felt even stronger about her now than I ever had. I missed her so much, more than I did at the airport when I had to leave her for the first time, too. Even with Sara here beside me rinsing the dishes I'd eaten off of.

Then my mother was sighing loudly, heading to her room and telling the two of us to turn off the TV and all the lights when we went to bed. With a click of a lock on the other side of the house, Sara's hand was on the back of my neck and her tongue was down my throat. Kissing Sara again reminded me that her lips were nothing like Lindsey's, and kissing her was nothing like kissing Lindsey. The two were such different people to me, played such different roles. I need to stop comparing the two, because I couldn't.

Sara walked me backwards to her room slowly, carefully while she continued to kiss me tenderly. These weren't the same kisses we usually shared, though, a comforting connection of lips to make both of us feel warm and safe and loved. This kissing was heavier, faster, and my brain was trying to keep up with my tongue. I'd kissed Lindsey like this a few times, just as deep, but it was still slower. It was the same speed I'd often gone with Sara before, but something different was happening this time, and my brain didn't know what to make of it. But my body did.

There was no sense in denying that I liked this, that Sara's hands on my neck and my hips gave me goose bumps and made me sweaty and hot in more ways than one. I'd made Lindsey feel this way before. I knew because I could see it in her eyes, feel the icy heat of her skin under my hands, but she had never rushed me to take it any further. She waited patiently for me to be ready for more, and I was ready for it now, but I was ready for it with Sara. My twin had that same since of calm and accommodation Lindsey did with me back in Vancouver, but Sara was pushing it because she knew she was the one person who could, because I'd tell her yes no matter what. I'd given her my consent last night when I told her I trusted her, and I truly did trust her with everything that was about to happen.


End file.
